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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: Steven Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: Patrick Jarrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: Sean <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: ANNOUNCE: My new conlang S11
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: ANNOUNCE: My new conlang S11
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: some of... vs. some... et al.
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: Moro Cases (was Re: some of... vs. some... et al.)
From: Thomas Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Fw: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: Thomas Leigh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: Stephen Mulraney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: Kura
From: Stephen Mulraney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: Bryan Parry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: Ivan Baines <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: ANNOUNCE: My new conlang S11
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 10:16:33 -0500
From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tristan McLeay" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> Hmm, I only know 'His/Her mother's!' as a very bad Chinese insult, but
>> I don't know many... This seemingly strange insult is insulting by
>> cultural agreement, it seems, and the real insult is just not
>> explicitly expressed. :-)
>
> I've heard 'your mum' used as an offensive insult on more than one
> occasion, usually from the mouths of (east) Asians, normally Vietnamese
> I think. I originally interpreted it as being abbreviated from the
> non-offensive insults like 'Your mum's so fat, she got a parking ticket
> while waiting to cross the road!', but the degree to which it offends
> suggested it probably came from something from their culture. The
> Chinese did have a strong influence over the Vietnamese in the past, so
> it seems even more likely.
This must be all over the world (referencing the other comments about other
cultures that have "your mother"). Because I've heard that "tu madre" in
Spanish is one of the vilest things you can say to someone. Sometimes it's
"a tu madre," i.e., stick it to your mother.
Sally
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 16:49:58 +0100
From: Steven Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
--- Dan Sulani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> schrieb:
In the heights of my sci-fi fandom, I called those who
weren't sci-fi fans or those who even looked down on
sci-fi fans 'mundanes'. But it seems a bit defensive
and derogatory to call non-conlangers 'mundanes'; I'm
sure many of us who conlang live pretty mundane lives,
and I'm sure many non-conlangers have very satisfying
lives.
> Anybody else have any ideas as to what we should
call
> those who don't create langs?
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 15:49:32 +0000
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
Dan Sulani wrote:
>
> Anybody else have any ideas as to what we should call
> those who don't create langs?
Why, Natlangers of course. The use of Natlangs is what creates them, so
I think it would be appropriate.
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Message: 4
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 08:55:42 -0700
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
Dan Sulani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I couldn't come up with an acceptable (to me,
> at any rate) term for the collective non-us.
> "Non-conlanger" doesn't really do it for me.
> So I borrowed a leaf from Harry Potter and called
> them "muggles". But that's not it either. (And besides,
> that would imply that we conlangers are all wizards
> and witches! Well, language-wizards, maybe. ;-)
> But still...! )
> Sally thought that we might refer to them as
> "avlangers" or "Avvles? (i.e., average users of language)"
> Anybody else have any ideas as to what we should call
> those who don't create langs?
Heh, I like the idea of "conlangers" vs "nonlangers", technically inaccurate
though it may be.
But if conlangers deal with conlangs, those who only deal with natlangs would
presumably be called natlangers. :)
*Muke!
--
website: http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt: http://kohath.deviantart.com/
FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/
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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 15:59:04 -0000
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>This must be all over the world (referencing the other comments
>about other cultures that have "your mother"). Because I've heard
>that "tu madre" in Spanish is one of the vilest things you can say
>to someone. Sometimes it's "a tu madre," i.e., stick it to your
>mother.
Does this explain "yo' mama!"?
Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/user:caeruleancentaur
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Message: 6
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 16:33:59 +0000
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
Tristan McLeay wrote:
> On 3 Mar 2005, at 11.48 pm, Henrik Theiling wrote:
>
>> Hi!
>>
>> Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>>
>>> ...
>>> Possibly a linguistic urban myth, but I heard that in parts of China,
>>> the
>>> ultimate insult is to tell someone "I'm your father", which of course
>>> implies
>>> "I fucked your mother". I suppose they were much amused by Star Wars.
>>> ...
>>
>>
>> Hmm, I only know 'His/Her mother's!' as a very bad Chinese insult, but
>> I don't know many... This seemingly strange insult is insulting by
>> cultural agreement, it seems, and the real insult is just not
>> explicitly expressed. :-)
>
>
> I've heard 'your mum' used as an offensive insult on more than one
> occasion, usually from the mouths of (east) Asians, normally Vietnamese
> I think. I originally interpreted it as being abbreviated from the
> non-offensive insults like 'Your mum's so fat, she got a parking ticket
> while waiting to cross the road!', but the degree to which it offends
> suggested it probably came from something from their culture. The
> Chinese did have a strong influence over the Vietnamese in the past, so
> it seems even more likely.
No, it's quite common in Britain too. Though not as an insult, but as
an ironic non-witty riposte.
ie.
"What's the answer to this?"
"[EMAIL PROTECTED] mum"
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Message: 7
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 11:50:30 -0500
From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Dan Sulani wrote:
>
>>
>> Anybody else have any ideas as to what we should call
>> those who don't create langs?
>
>
> Why, Natlangers of course. The use of Natlangs is what creates them, so
> I think it would be appropriate.
Ah, but that's so dull! We're all of us natlangers, too. None of us DON'T
speak a natural language. The point was to put us in a special category,
like the wizards, and the rest in a comic category, like the "muggles." I
had suggested avlangers, speakers of only average languages, and condensed
that to "avlers" (the double "v" was a purely Teonaht slip!!), but now think
that ordlanger (ordinary language) might be better--or "soolers" (speakers
of only ordinary language). :) ???
Sally
Sally
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Message: 8
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 12:54:51 -0500
From: Patrick Jarrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
What about civvies? Civilians.
Or if mundanes is too mean, how about shortening it to 'danes' and
keeping the real meaning 'secret'.
Then again we could call them some 'Outties' and we're the 'innies'
If we don't like muggles, then maybe a play on it 'congles' (though
that sounds like a body part) or maybe the 'nattles'.
What'cha think?
-- Patrick
On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 11:50:30 -0500, Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Joe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> > Dan Sulani wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Anybody else have any ideas as to what we should call
> >> those who don't create langs?
> >
> >
> > Why, Natlangers of course. The use of Natlangs is what creates them, so
> > I think it would be appropriate.
>
> Ah, but that's so dull! We're all of us natlangers, too. None of us DON'T
> speak a natural language. The point was to put us in a special category,
> like the wizards, and the rest in a comic category, like the "muggles." I
> had suggested avlangers, speakers of only average languages, and condensed
> that to "avlers" (the double "v" was a purely Teonaht slip!!), but now think
> that ordlanger (ordinary language) might be better--or "soolers" (speakers
> of only ordinary language). :) ???
>
> Sally
>
> Sally
>
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Message: 9
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 10:07:42 -0800
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
Muke wrote:
<<
Heh, I like the idea of "conlangers" vs "nonlangers", technically
inaccurate
though it may be.
>>
Ha! I think this one's the best. First, it rhymes. Second, even
though it would seem to technically imply that these are people
without language, the only people who use "prefix-lang" are
conlangers, so it seems like the "-lang" suffix implies conlanging,
even in a word like "natlang". Yeah, my vote is for nonlanger
(not that we're voting).
-David
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Message: 10
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 18:10:36 -0000
From: Sean <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
> Anybody else have any ideas as to what we should call
> those who don't create langs?
I'm not sure this is necessarily wise. It could only serve to sharpen
the distinction between conlangers and the general public. Isn't
conlanging already considered a bit antisocial?
Regards,
Sean
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Message: 11
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:21:36 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
How about Typpies? For Typical language users . . .
On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 12:54:51PM -0500, Patrick Jarrett wrote:
> What about civvies? Civilians.
>
> Or if mundanes is too mean, how about shortening it to 'danes' and
> keeping the real meaning 'secret'.
>
> Then again we could call them some 'Outties' and we're the 'innies'
>
> If we don't like muggles, then maybe a play on it 'congles' (though
> that sounds like a body part) or maybe the 'nattles'.
>
> What'cha think?
>
> -- Patrick
>
> On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 11:50:30 -0500, Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Joe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >
> > > Dan Sulani wrote:
> > >
> > >>
> > >> Anybody else have any ideas as to what we should call
> > >> those who don't create langs?
> > >
> > >
> > > Why, Natlangers of course. The use of Natlangs is what creates them, so
> > > I think it would be appropriate.
> >
> > Ah, but that's so dull! We're all of us natlangers, too. None of us DON'T
> > speak a natural language. The point was to put us in a special category,
> > like the wizards, and the rest in a comic category, like the "muggles." I
> > had suggested avlangers, speakers of only average languages, and condensed
> > that to "avlers" (the double "v" was a purely Teonaht slip!!), but now think
> > that ordlanger (ordinary language) might be better--or "soolers" (speakers
> > of only ordinary language). :) ???
> >
> > Sally
> >
> > Sally
> >
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Message: 12
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 10:32:57 -0800
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ANNOUNCE: My new conlang S11
On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 03:21:26AM +0100, Henrik Theiling wrote:
> Hi!
>
> "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
[...]
> > Interesting. This is what motivated me to devise Ebisédian's (and
> > Tatari Faran's) case system (along with my general dissatisfaction
> > with the passive voice).
>
> Aha, someone with similar notions of 'nice structure'? :-)
Apparently so. :-) To me, 'nice structure' means symmetry, and
minimal arbitrariness. I don't like the arbitrary distinction between
core and non-core arguments (if they're so unimportant as to be
non-core, why include them in the sentence at all?), and I especially
dislike the way non-nominative arguments in accusative systems are
defective, in the sense that convolutions are needed if they are to be
treated in a similar way to the nominative.
Now of course, I'm not saying that every grammar must be completely
idealistic and have mathematical symmetry, but I do expect that a
well-thought-up conlang shouldn't just blindly reproduce existing
systems with exactly the same flaws and asymmetry in exactly the same
places, without at least exploring some other (hopefully better) ways
of handling verb argument marking.
> > During my early attempts to solve this problem I decided that I
> > needed at least 3 core cases, so that trivalent verbs like 'to give'
> > can be expressed without adjuncts.
>
> Only my first conlang Fukhian had three core arguments, and I think
> that was more a similarity I copied from langs I know than thinking
> about it. In the next two major projects Tyl Sjok and Qthyn|gai, I
> also started with three core cases, but instead of keeping them, I
> dropped them in order to keep the number of grammar rules and ordering
> constraints low.
What kind of ordering constraints were you considering?
> In Qthyn|gai, the number of valence infixes needed would have been
> enormous -- even with only two core cases, it has some 27 infixes or
> so.
Ouch. :-)
[...]
> The alternative was an approach like Lojban, which makes the
> borderline between argument and adjunct depend on the verb -- but
> still, there is a decision to be taken -- I did not want this --
> neither globally, nor for each verb. I personally find the Lojban
> argument system rather unsatisfactory.
I've not looked at Lojban in detail, but from what I understand, it
quite resembles many programming languages in the sense that functions
(verbs) have a fixed number of arguments that are expected to be
passed in a fixed order.
[...]
> When finishing my grammar sketch, I wondered whether AllNoun's
> structure is comparable to S11, but I don't think so. Diving into the
> structure I found out that Tom Breton himself mentioned problems he
> encountered that I don't think I will face since my lang is not so
> simplistically motivated -- and verbs *are* different from nouns. And
> I think nouns like 'act-of-being-red' seem to be a bit awkward.
I think such glosses are still too verb-centric. Sure it's a noun, but
there's a verb hiding behind the noun in the form of a participle. A
truly verbless lang should not need such circumlocutions. One idea
that just occurred to me is to use directional affixes on nouns
(vaguely similar to Ebisédian), e.g.:
I kick you --> my_foot you-TOWARDS
You speak to me --> your_words me-TOWARDS
The dog runs away --> dog here-FROM
I leave the house --> I house-FROM
I look at him --> my_eyes him-TOWARDS
The directional affixes can be more sophisticated than this, of
course. For example, you might want to have a "fast-towards" and
"slow-towards" affix, for distinguishing between, say, "I kick you"
vs. "I show you my foot".
Hmm, this is starting to look vaguely similar to your system. :-)
[...]
> I had wondered about how you assign the roles to the Ebisedian cases,
> actually, because the cases are different from well-known natlang
> cases and I wondered whether free-running verbs will be nice enough to
> let you assign cases easily. But I never dived into your grammar too
> deeply, I must admit...
Ebisédian (and Tatari Faran, albeit with fewer cases) assign roles
based on a preconceived model of how actions/events happen. The
Ebisédian model can be thought of as the metaphoric picture of the
conveyant noun moving (in the metaphoric sense) from the originative
noun to the receptive noun through the locative noun, under the
continual action of the instrumental noun. Every action is
rationalized in terms of this model.
E.g., to look at something, the sense of sight proceeds from the
looker (originative) to the target (receptive), but to see something,
the sight seen proceeds from the thing seen (originative) to the seer
(receptive). Travelling from A to B has the obvious assignment origin:
originative; traveller: conveyant; destination: receptive.
Other verbs can be similarly rationalized. So far, I haven't come
across any verb that doesn't fit into the model in some way. But I
eventually found out that having to deal with 5 core cases is rather
difficult. There are too many to choose from when assigning roles to
simple verbs that only ever need 1 or 2 arguments, and I sometimes
found it difficult to remember the role assignments for more obscure
verbs. This is one of the things that motivated me to simplify the
system when designing Tatari Faran.
[...]
> And I really liked the structure of Tatari Faran that you presented
> here. I found the verb complements quite intuitive for some
> reason. :-)
Yeah it's one of those things that are so hard to compare with a
natlang, but somehow very intuitive once you learn it.
> Maybe it felt like Afrikaans, which has these great negation
> complements which I copied into Da Mätz se Basa. :-))) Only for
> each verb, not for negation.
Does Afrikaans have something similar to the Tatari Faran complements?
How do the negation complements work?
[...]
> > Eventually, I came upon a rather elegant solution (IMHO): since the 3
> > core cases were marked by postclitics, which were already treated as
> > separate words, why not open up the class and treat postpositions the
> > same way as well? And so, I decided that Tatari Faran postpositions
> > govern the unmarked NP (without case marker). I.e., they appeared in
> > the same position as where the case markers would appear, and
> > essentially behaved like the case markers.
>
> A bit like Finnish does it, I think, if you think of the adjunct,
> non-core cases. But Finnish has additional postpositions that look
> different. Some German dative objects that are not arguments also
> look like arguments syntactically. But again, the normal case is a
> prepositional phrase that looks different, yes.
OK.
> > I even went so far as to equate postpositional clauses with NP's at
> > the syntactic level, in that the indicative word order was
> > subject-verb-arguments, and if one fronts a postpositional clause,
> > the order becomes PC-verb-subject-arguments. I.e., the PC has the
> > same status as a 'normal' NP.
>
> Ah, ok. The word order rule resembles Germanic V2 (verb second) order
> then, where the topic phrase (either subject or object NP or adjunct
> PP) is just in front of the verb. Is the fronting due to topicality
> in Tatari Faran?
The first NP that occurs in a clause is treated as the syntactic
subject (for elision in subsequent clauses, etc.). It can be used to
indicate topic or focus (yes I know the two are different), but that
depends on context. I think the best way to describe it is that it's a
syntactic subject. Note that subjectivity is independent of role
marking in Tatari Faran.
[...]
> > > - there are no adjuncts either, the whole structure is controlled
> > > by using a sequence of noun-verb pairs.
> >
> > Nice! This sounds almost like a fleeting idea I posted to the list
> > once, while thinking about Ebisédian grammar.
>
> Did you? When was that?
I don't remember, probably quite early on, maybe 2000 or 2001. IIRC,
it was during one of my crises with Ebisédian, in that I liked the
case system but realized that it had fundamental limitations that I
didn't know how to overcome. That was one of the ideas I tried.
[...]
> > receive'? Then "A gives B to C" could be expressed as "A-offer
> > B-transfer C-receive", which looks strikingly similar to what you
> > describe below. :-)
>
> Yes. It's indeed the same idea. Maybe it's the *only*
> solution. :-)))
Perhaps it is. :-)
When I thought of it at the time, though, it was a lot more complex
because I wanted to retain the Ebisédian case system. (In retrospect,
I should've just thrown out the case system.) So not only was the verb
compounded with the noun, but the noun itself also had case marking. I
don't remember the details of what the case marking did w.r.t. the
meaning of the verb, but it wasn't very pretty, and I gave up
eventually.
[...]
> > > 'John, who asks a question, is addressed.' =
> > > John JIT LU KHAN NI GUP JIT MAT.
> > > noun ev. verb noun verb rel. ev. verb
> > > John hearsay ask question posed who hearsay addressed
>
> BTW, the evidence markers serves a second purpose in this lang: it
> marks the start of a sub-clause, otherwise some maybe bad ambiguity
> could arise. But with evidence as start marker and relative
> particle at the end, it's properly bracketed.
Wait, so the evidence markers always begin a sub-clause? So where is
the matching relative particle for "JIT" in your example sentence
"John JIT LU Mary MAT KHAN NI" ?
T
--
Arise, you prisoners of Windows / Arise, you slaves of Redmond, Wash, / The
day and hour soon are coming / When all the IT folks say "Gosh!" / It isn't
from a clever lawsuit / That Windowsland will finally fall, / But thousands
writing open source code / Like mice who nibble through a wall. -- The
Linux-nationale by Greg Baker
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Message: 13
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 18:39:11 +0000
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
Sally Caves wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Joe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
>> Dan Sulani wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Anybody else have any ideas as to what we should call
>>> those who don't create langs?
>>
>>
>>
>> Why, Natlangers of course. The use of Natlangs is what creates them, so
>> I think it would be appropriate.
>
>
> Ah, but that's so dull! We're all of us natlangers, too. None of us
> DON'T
> speak a natural language. The point was to put us in a special category,
Well, we are in a special category. 'Conlangers'. 'Natlangers' is
simply the natural opposition to that.
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Message: 14
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 18:35:20 -0000
From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
I like Muke's "nonlanger". Natlanger, while a sensible construction,
still feels too active to me. Natlanging implies the creation of
natlangs, which makes no sense. A nonlanger, on the other hand,
simply doesn't bother with langs at all.
On second thought, a natlanger could be someone who shows great
interest in natlangs and learns several of them. A distant cousin
of the conlanger, so to speak.
-- Christian Thalmann
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Message: 15
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 10:39:59 -0800
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ANNOUNCE: My new conlang S11
On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 03:57:09AM +0100, Henrik Theiling wrote:
[...]
> avoid this reference to roles. A role is simply defined by its verb.
> There is no generic agent, there is someone who asks. There is no
> generic patient, but only someone who is hit, etc.
[...]
I like this. But how would you translate something like "what are you
doing today"? Or, "who did what?" Or, "what did he do to her?" Since
there would not be a generic agent.
T
--
Claiming that your operating system is the best in the world because more
people use it is like saying McDonalds makes the best food in the world. --
Carl B. Constantine
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Message: 16
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 19:52:35 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: some of... vs. some... et al.
Hi!
Thomas wrote:
> Actually, quite a few head-marking languages do precisely
> this. Since core arguments are cross-referenced on the
> verb, you don't need to mark them on the dependent nouns.
ObConlang: Qthyn|gai also does this for exactly that reason. It has a
lot of cases, too, but agentive and patientive are unmarked on the
dependent, just on the predicate. All three, predicate, agent and
patient, use a generic 'predicative' case infix.
**Henrik
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Message: 17
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:18:04 -0600
From: Thomas Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Moro Cases (was Re: some of... vs. some... et al.)
> Uh...head-marking? I've never been good at this.
Yeah. The basic difference is that agreement patterns tend
in languages to be marked either on the phrasal heads (the
verb in VPs, the noun in NPs, the preposition in PPs) or
their dependents (the NP in VPs and PPs, adjectives in
NPs). Case-marking and verb-agreement have, very generally
speaking, the same functional role of identifying grammatical
relations. Thus, a language which marks such features on
both heads and dependents (like, say, Georgian) has a high
degree of redundancy, while languages like Chinese have
very little. Because languages tend to seek a mean in
redundancy, they tend to have some agreement or some
case-marking, but not always both. And languages can mark
both head and dependent for some grammatical categories
(e.g. Latin verb agreement and nominative case on nouns),
but only one or the other or none for other categories
(e.g. Latin accusative case on NPs).
> Here's a big NP:
>
> ej jamala iki [EMAIL PROTECTED] /all PLU.-camel this CONC.-white/
It's hard to tell from this gloss here, it looks like you're
getting both head and dependent marking, since the noun
has a affix denoting some grammatical property, and the
dependent adjective has a suffix (which looks alliterative
here) marking the same feature. Like Latin or Greek, then.
==========================================================================
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: 18
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 14:33:11 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Fw: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
Drat Gmail. This went to Patrick in error.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Mills" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Patrick Jarrett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: March 3, 2005 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
> mende imanji pando:
> > > > Dan Sulani wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> Anybody else have any ideas as to what we should call
> > > >> those who don't create langs?
> > > >
> I vote for "nonlangers", shortened to ['[EMAIL PROTECTED] but how to spell
> it...
>
> nonnles? nonnels?
>
> Maybe nonnies :-)))
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Message: 19
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 15:16:35 -0500
From: Thomas Leigh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
Dan S:
> In a recent off-list email to Sally Caves,
> I had occasion to mention those who do not
> participate in our (well, whatever it is we
> do -- art, craft, hobby, etc)...
> Anybody else have any ideas as to what we should call
> those who don't create langs?
How about "The Unwashed"?
Pat J:
> If we don't like muggles, then maybe a play
> on it 'congles' (though that sounds like a
> body part)
LOL! Right in the congles! *wince*
Thomas
Master of All Beats
[This message contained attachments]
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Message: 20
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 20:29:49 +0000
From: Stephen Mulraney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
David J. Peterson wrote:
> Muke wrote:
> <<
> Heh, I like the idea of "conlangers" vs "nonlangers", technically
> inaccurate
> though it may be.
> >>
>
> Ha! I think this one's the best. First, it rhymes. Second, even
> though it would seem to technically imply that these are people
> without language, the only people who use "prefix-lang" are
> conlangers, so it seems like the "-lang" suffix implies conlanging,
> even in a word like "natlang". Yeah, my vote is for nonlanger
> (not that we're voting).
I'd second it. Actually, I thought of it as soon as Dan asked for
suggestions, but didn't get around to saying it :). It seems a little
bit mean, but since it's clearly nonsensical as well, it's IMHO much
preferable to "avlangers", "civvies", "[mun]danes", etc etc...
> -David
s.
--
Stephen Mulraney [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Klein bottle for rent ... inquire within.
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Message: 21
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 20:32:14 +0000
From: Stephen Mulraney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Kura
Tristan McLeay wrote:
> Crestine Skælante vræt:
>
>> I was looking around here: http://del.icio.us/feaelin/conlang
>> and ended up in here: http://www.ats.lmu.de/kura/index.php
>> (Kura, a multi-user open-source linguistic database).
>> Does anyone have any experience with Kura (and would like to share)?
>
>
> I've tried it various times on both Linux and Mac OS X, and never had
> much success. My best experience allowed me to add data, and apparently
> save it, but on relaunching it didn't seem to read the file properly so
> it was as good as gone.
I tried it on Linux a few years ago, and it worked well enough to use,
although I had some dataloss problems of some sort upon restart, too.
In the end I got sick of it though: too much pointing and clicking.
I went back to the command line.
> Tristan.
s.
--
Stephen Mulraney [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Klein bottle for rent ... inquire within.
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Message: 22
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 20:45:15 +0000
From: Bryan Parry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
We could just call em 'humans' *rolls eyes* ;)
How about "Clangers".
--- Stephen Mulraney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> David J. Peterson wrote:
> > Muke wrote:
> > <<
> > Heh, I like the idea of "conlangers" vs
> "nonlangers", technically
> > inaccurate
> > though it may be.
> > >>
> >
> > Ha! I think this one's the best. First, it
> rhymes. Second, even
> > though it would seem to technically imply that
> these are people
> > without language, the only people who use
> "prefix-lang" are
> > conlangers, so it seems like the "-lang" suffix
> implies conlanging,
> > even in a word like "natlang". Yeah, my vote is
> for nonlanger
> > (not that we're voting).
>
> I'd second it. Actually, I thought of it as soon as
> Dan asked for
> suggestions, but didn't get around to saying it :).
> It seems a little
> bit mean, but since it's clearly nonsensical as
> well, it's IMHO much
> preferable to "avlangers", "civvies", "[mun]danes",
> etc etc...
>
> > -David
>
> s.
> --
> Stephen Mulraney [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Klein bottle for rent ... inquire within.
>
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.
-- William Butler Yeats
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
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Message: 23
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:06:37 -0800
From: Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
--- Bryan Parry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> We could just call em 'humans' *rolls eyes* ;)
>
> How about "Clangers".
>
Follow the military convention of giving everything
three-letter abbreviations and call them NCIs for Non
Conlanging Individuals.
--gary
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Message: 24
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 21:08:53 -0000
From: Ivan Baines <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What to Call Non-Conlangers
> > Ha! I think this one's the best. First, it rhymes. Second, even
> > though it would seem to technically imply that these are people
> > without language, the only people who use "prefix-lang" are
> > conlangers, so it seems like the "-lang" suffix implies conlanging,
> > even in a word like "natlang". Yeah, my vote is for nonlanger
> > (not that we're voting).
>
> I'd second it. Actually, I thought of it as soon as Dan asked for
> suggestions, but didn't get around to saying it :). It seems a little
> bit mean, but since it's clearly nonsensical as well, it's IMHO much
> preferable to "avlangers", "civvies", "[mun]danes", etc etc...
Definitely gets my vote. But it doesn't necessarily imply people
without language. I see it this way: there are a number of words
ending in -langer, right, which describe people who engage in
various related activities - e.g. conlanger, romlanger, loglanger,
etc. These people could be collectively called "langers". Thus
those who don't engage in such activities would quite clearly be
"non-langers"!
IB.
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Message: 25
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 22:18:21 +0100
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ANNOUNCE: My new conlang S11
On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 10:32:57 -0800, H. S. Teoh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I've not looked at Lojban in detail, but from what I understand, it
> quite resembles many programming languages in the sense that functions
> (verbs) have a fixed number of arguments that are expected to be
> passed in a fixed order.
Kind of, though all arguments are optional and you can change the
order if you explicitly mark this -- either on the function (there are
"reordering" prefixes -- part of speech "SE" -- that turn f(a, b, c)
into, for example, f'(b, a, c), so the first argument to f' is the
same as the second argument to f, i.e. f(aap, noot, mies) means the
same as f'(noot, aap, mies)) or on the arguments (there are
"positional" prefixes -- part of speech "FA" -- that say, for example,
"this is the third argument" so you could call, say, f(3=foo) which
fills the third argument with "foo" and leaves the first and second
ones unspecified, or f(2=bar, baz, qux) which makes "bar" the second
argument and "baz" and "qux" the first and third (since they are not
explicitly numbered, they fill up the unused arguments), or, if you
really wanted, you could be explicit about all places by saying
f(1=bla, 2=ble, 3=bli)).
The first argument looks most like a subject, but even that is
optional; missing places are filled in with {zo'e}, which you can also
explicitly mention if you wanted; it's glossed as "unspecified it" and
merely indicates that that place isn't filled, so no particular
mention is made of that particular place (e.g. {mi dunda le cukta} =
{mi dunda le cukta zo'e} = "I give the book to unspecified-it", so
there is a recipient [this is part of the definition of {dunda}] but
we're not making any particular claim about them).
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Watch the Reply-To!
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