There are 16 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Lots of questions about tones
From: David McCann
1b. Re: Lots of questions about tones
From: Mark J. Reed
1c. Re: Lots of questions about tones
From: Dirk Elzinga
2a. Re: Syllable Structure, Syllable Weight, Rhythm, Stress
From: Dirk Elzinga
2b. Re: Syllable Structure, Syllable Weight, Rhythm, Stress
From: John Vertical
2c. Re: Syllable Structure, Syllable Weight, Rhythm, Stress
From: Eldin Raigmore
3.1. Re: promiscuity & fidelity (was: Re: The philosophical language fall
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
4a. Re: promiscuity & fidelity (was: Re: everything under the sun)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
5a. Re: The philosophical language fallacy (was ...)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
6.1. Re: CHAT: facing your own mortality (as a conlanger)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
6.2. Re: CHAT: facing your own mortality (as a conlanger)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
7.1. Re: Media mortality (< facing your own mortality)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
8.1. Re: Word classification (was Re: The philosophical language fallacy
From: Herman Miller
8.2. Re: Word classification (was Re: The philosophical language fallacy
From: And Rosta
9. My forum
From: janko gorenc
10a. Re: Lots of Questions About Tones (more questions)
From: Eldin Raigmore
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Lots of questions about tones
Posted by: "David McCann" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 11, 2008 4:07 pm ((PDT))
So it looks as if consonant loss and merger don't generate tones
directly, but produce registers - breathy or creaky voice - that later
become tones? This certainly seems more plausible.
It also looks as if the same circumstances can generate different tones.
The Proto-Athabascan -taʔ gives opposite results in different languages
if the glottal stop is lost: Chipewyan -tá but Sarcee -tà. Presumably
one case involved creaky voice, the other not.
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Lots of questions about tones
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 11, 2008 4:43 pm ((PDT))
However you replied to this broke the thread, fyi. Showed up as a new
conversation...
But I thought creaky/breathy developed from pitch tones, rather than
the reverse?
On 7/11/08, David McCann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> So it looks as if consonant loss and merger don't generate tones
> directly, but produce registers - breathy or creaky voice - that later
> become tones? This certainly seems more plausible.
>
> It also looks as if the same circumstances can generate different tones.
> The Proto-Athabascan -taʔ gives opposite results in different languages
> if the glottal stop is lost: Chipewyan -tá but Sarcee -tà. Presumably
> one case involved creaky voice, the other not.
>
--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Lots of questions about tones
Posted by: "Dirk Elzinga" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 11, 2008 5:58 pm ((PDT))
On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 5:43 PM, Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> However you replied to this broke the thread, fyi. Showed up as a new
> conversation...
>
> But I thought creaky/breathy developed from pitch tones, rather than
> the reverse?
It makes sense to me. Many words in Shoshoni have vowels separated by
glottal stop. In Western Shoshoni (and probably Ft. Hall and Wind River as
well) the glottal stop is clearly audible as creaky voice in rapid speech;
the creak is accompanied by a falling pitch contour. In Goshute, the
creakiness is not as pronounced or is absent entirely, but the falling pitch
is still present. This suggests a progression of glottal stop > creaky voice
> creaky voice/falling pitch > falling pitch. Were there young people
acquiring Goshute now (alas, there are none), I would expect the creak to be
completely gone and tonal contrasts left behind.
On 7/11/08, David McCann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > So it looks as if consonant loss and merger don't generate tones
> > directly, but produce registers - breathy or creaky voice - that later
> > become tones? This certainly seems more plausible.
> >
> > It also looks as if the same circumstances can generate different tones.
> > The Proto-Athabascan -taʔ gives opposite results in different languages
> > if the glottal stop is lost: Chipewyan -tá but Sarcee -tà. Presumably
> > one case involved creaky voice, the other not.
> >
>
> --
> Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com
>
> Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
Dirk
--
Miapimoquitch: Tcf Pt*p+++12,4(c)v(v/c) W* Mf+++h+++t*a2c*g*n4 Sf++++argh
La----c++d++600
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Syllable Structure, Syllable Weight, Rhythm, Stress
Posted by: "Dirk Elzinga" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 11, 2008 5:50 pm ((PDT))
Well, since no one else is biting, I will.
On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 11:15 AM, Eldin Raigmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> In languages with weight-sensitive stress systems, in which both the nature
> of the nucleus and the nature of the coda are weight-factors, are there any
> in which some syllables count as three morae?
> For instance, if the nucleus is a triphtghong or a long diphthong, and the
> coda
> is a cluster that includes a sonorant?
>
> [njawlnd]
> [mwojrmb]
> or some such, for instance. (or make up your own, better examples, or,
> best
> of all, show some from a natlang.)
The best-known case of this is Hindi, where it is claimed that stress is
attracted to the heaviest syllable within a domain. Syllables can be light
(C)V, heavy (C)V{C|V}, or superheavy (C)V{C|V}C. This claim is still
controversial, since the stress facts are not entirely clear.
Estonian is also often mentioned in this context. I believe you'll find some
stuff in the archives that I posted a while ago on Estonian.
> Are there any weight-sensitive-stress-system natlangs in which the primary
> stress is always on the fourth mora of the word (if it's long enough)? Or
> on
> the fourth-from-last mora of the word (if it's long enough)?
>
> Are there any fixed-stress-system natlangs in which the primary stress is
> always on the fourth syllable, or the fourth-from-last syllable, if the
> word is
> long enough?
I don't know of any language which has this property--either
quantity-sensitive or quantity-insensitive. The available stress window
seems to be three-deep from the end. (Only two-deep from the beginning, and
languages with regular second-{syllable|mora} stress are vanishingly rare;
Hopi and Chemehuevi/Southern Paiute being two of them.)
> Are their any natlangs whose rhythm-type for distribution of secondary
> stresses, is weight-sensitive? For instance, every second mora instead of
> every second syllable?
Most of the Numic languages (Uto-Aztecan; North American Great Basin) are
like this. In Shoshoni, primary stress falls on the first mora and secondary
stress on every other mora thereafter (there's an odd little hop that
Shoshoni does if the second mora of a heavy syllable is stressed; stress
moves to the first mora and the alternation begins anew). It strikes me as
not unusual, so other examples shouldn't be hard to find.
> Are there any natlangs whose system for distribution of secondary stress is
> other than iambic or trochaic?
> For instance, every third syllable, or every third mora, or every fourth
> mora?
>
This claim has been made for Cayuvava; the pattern is clearly dactylic
(quantity-insensitive, I believe). It has excited metrical theorists for a
while now.
Sorry I don't have relevant bits of data; I'm at home and all of my
reference works are in my office at work.
Dirk
--
Miapimoquitch: Tcf Pt*p+++12,4(c)v(v/c) W* Mf+++h+++t*a2c*g*n4 Sf++++argh
La----c++d++600
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Syllable Structure, Syllable Weight, Rhythm, Stress
Posted by: "John Vertical" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Jul 12, 2008 7:51 am ((PDT))
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:15:00 -0400, Eldin Raigmore wrote:
>-------------
>
>Are their any natlangs whose rhythm-type for distribution of secondary
>stresses, is weight-sensitive? For instance, every second mora instead of
>every second syllable?
Finnish is usually trocaic, but a folloing hevvy syllable will attract
secondary stress from a light one.
/'kirsik,kainen/
/'juokse,masta/
/'eleh,dintä/
but
/'kiertele,mättä/
John Vertical
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: Syllable Structure, Syllable Weight, Rhythm, Stress
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:08 am ((PDT))
Thank you, Dirk and Vertical. Those are very helpful.
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:50:01 -0600, Dirk Elzinga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>[snip]
>...The available stress window seems to be three-deep from the end. (Only
>two-deep from the beginning, and languages with regular second-
>{syllable|mora} stress are vanishingly rare; Hopi and Chemehuevi/Southern
>Paiute being two of them.)
< http://wals.info/feature/14 >
lists Winnebago as third-syllable primary stress (weight-insensitive), and
lists
16 languages with second-syllable primary stress (weight-insensitive), out of
502 languages for which this feature was analyzed.
As far as the primary stress goes, a first-mora-stress is indistinguishable
from
a first-syllable-stress.
But a second-mora-stress would stress the first syllable if the first syllable
is
heavy, but the second syllable if the first syllable is light.
And a third-mora-stress would stress the second syllable if either of the first
two syllables is heavy, but the third syllable if both of the first two
syllables
are light.
See < http://wals.info/feature/description/15 >
< http://wals.info/feature/15 >
lists 2 languages with weight-sensitive stress on the third mora; Kashaya and
Laragia.
It lists 37 languages with weight-sensitive stress on the second mora.
>[snip]
The rest of what you said was brand new to me, and informative, helpful, and
above all _interesting_. Thanks.
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3.1. Re: promiscuity & fidelity (was: Re: The philosophical language fall
Posted by: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 11, 2008 5:53 pm ((PDT))
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jim Henry
> On 7/8/08, And Rosta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Have any of the surveys of conlangers conducted on this
> list over the years
> > looked at the quantity and longevity of our conlangs? Among
> us, there are
>
> > And
> > perhaps there are (tho I can't think of an example) fickle
> monogamists, who
> > work on one language at a time but do sometimes abandon one
> language for
> > another-- ah yes, Matt Pearson would be an example.
>
> Since I first encountered Quenya and Noldorin in 1989, I've
> created about 20 conlangs; the vast majority of which I worked
> on for less than a year (many for less than a month)
> before abandoning them. Since 1998 when I started working on
> gjâ-zym-byn, though, I've never gone more than six months
> without doing some development work on it,...
A lot of my projects depend upon the mood I'm in at the time.
Sasxsek has definitely had the most attention but it also
requires a lot of home too. My other conlangs usually sprout of
of an idea, and sometimes I'll play with the idea for a while
until I get bored then move on to something else I've taken a
fairly long break from S:S: mainly because I was getting a bit
burned out working on it, but now I'm starting to get an urge to
continue it along with a couple of my other favorite projects
like Deini and the loglang without a name.
Messages in this topic (29)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4a. Re: promiscuity & fidelity (was: Re: everything under the sun)
Posted by: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:29 pm ((PDT))
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of And Rosta
> Faithful monogamy, I attest from experience, is no guarantor
> of fluency or even of the potentiality of fluency; I'm like
> one of those bikers whose bike is forever in pieces in the
> garage as it is repeatedly built and unbuilt, and so never
> permits one to ride it, never to feel the wind through the
> hair. ...
That's actually a pretty good analogy, but you can still take
the bike for a ride even those it may not have all the fancy
chrome on it yet. It the motor starts and the wheels are
attached why not take it for a ride.
For me it's not just moving between projects that prevents any
one from completion but time. I'm sure most of us have
responsibilities to work and such. I also have other interests
that compete for my time, including hobbies that I put above
conlanging though they don't seem to get allocated much time
either. Conlanging is my "lazy" hobby for when I'm home and not
motivated to do any requiring physical activity.
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5a. Re: The philosophical language fallacy (was ...)
Posted by: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 11, 2008 7:34 pm ((PDT))
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jorg
Rhiemeier
> > No, it's not easy but it's only difficult if you take it to
> > extremes as with AUI or Toki Pona. I have an
oligosynthetic
> > project in the works, but there is also a phonosemantic
schema
> > that will underly the root morphemes. It's just an idea
I'm
> > playing with right now. I don't expect to reduce everything
> > down to 32 roots, though I'd be happy to get it down to the
> > 500-600 range.
>
> In my opinion, *all* closed-vocabulary schemes run into
> this sort of problems, only to a lesser degree if the set
> of roots is larger. There are always things that cannot
> easily be captured adequately by any construction of
> reasonable length. Of course, you can define it with,
> e.g., the word list of Basic English. But what if the
> definition of something is 100 morphemes long? In a pure
> closed-vocabulary language, you'd have to repeat the
> definition every time the concept is mentioned in the text.
> Hardly practical, especially if you are talking about a
> subject matter where such things occur frequently. You
> will want to assign a shorter name to it.
Sometimes, it's possible to have a shorthand form. Used
contextually, this can often be enough. My longlang is
primarily verbal so a lot of "things" will have meanings that
refer to what they do.
I've set up basic morphemes of the shape CV(n), but I'm also
going to have a disyllabic shape CCVCV(n) or CVCCV(n) for the
less common ideas like chemical elements and other technical
terms that will need their own morpheme.
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6.1. Re: CHAT: facing your own mortality (as a conlanger)
Posted by: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 11, 2008 8:13 pm ((PDT))
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nomad of Norad -- David C Hall
> >> When you open the box, you find punch-cards and 8-inch floppies.
> >
> > I find some guy that collects antique computers and get him
> to read them.
> > If they aren't readable, then no big deal. Yes, it would
> be interesting
> > to see the materials but I wouldn't cry over it.
>
> I gather there is at least one organization out there that specializes
> in retrieving data from obsolete media from all sorts of different
> vintage machines and platforms. Might be worth looking one of those up.
>
> There's also a company that makes punch-card reading and writing
> machines for companies that still use such technology (!!!). They've
> got a whole factory for it, and also refurbish old punch-card machines.
> I think there was an article in WIRED a few years back...
Yes, there are data recovery services, and some even specialize in older media.
Just for fun I was googling around for information on some of the older
computers. I noticed there's a company now making a KIM-1 clone! (1975?) I'm
not sure how much of a market there is for something like that but it must have
taken some time and effort to design and build the boards. I used to have a
KIM-1, and it really did't do much given the 1K RAM, hex pad, and 6 digit LED
display.
> Even if the paper has been shredded, it might be possible to retrieve
> the data off it. There was another WIRED article awhile back about a
> major project to do just that to the gadzillions of shredded documents
> that the serveilance society that existed in East Germany prior to the
> collapse of the Soviet Union made... where the government was spying on
> all of its own citizens and keeping reams and reams of notes on
> individuals. The agents in the particular agency that was doing this
> frantically shredded gadzillions of the most damaging (to themselves)
> documents they could get their hands on, working round the clock, in the
> closing ours of the Union. But then the citizens, having found out
> about this stuff, insisted that ALL of it be preserved, so that they
> could find out what kinds of stuff their former government had been
> recording about them. At first, they were reassembling the shredded
> documents by hand, but then some other group realized they
> could create an advanced computer scanning system to do it faster.
I've even seen some amazing ways they have now of figuring out what old faded
documents have written on them and filling in missing pieces. The thing is
that these are still intensive processes that wouldn't be available to just
anyone.
Messages in this topic (79)
________________________________________________________________________
6.2. Re: CHAT: facing your own mortality (as a conlanger)
Posted by: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 11, 2008 8:26 pm ((PDT))
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nomad of
Norad -- David C Hall
> > On Wed, 2 Jul 2008 23:05:22 -0400, Dana Nutter wrote:
> >
> >> I know other believe differently, and they are entitled to
do
> >> so, but my philosophy is when I'm gone, I'm nothing more
than
> >> food for the worms whether anyone remembers me or not.
Leaving
> >> something behind means nothing to me.
> >
> > That's a rather bleak and cynical outlook, I must say.
> >
> > I know that I don't know what happens to me after I die,
> > but apart from this _scio ut nescio_ I firmly believe
> > that we are here with a purpose, namely to make the world
> > a better and more beautiful place. And that means that we
> > *should* care about the rest of the world, even beyond our
> > own lifespans.
>
> Indeed, he seems to be going into this with the attitude that,
unless
> his material is preserved *only* the way *he* wants it
preserved *and*
> *no* *other* *way*, then he seemingly doesn't want it
preserved *at* *all*.
No, I'm going into it with the attitude that I really don't care
*if* any of my work is preserved at all. If someone wants to
take the materials I've published in PDF's, print them out and
lock them in a hermetically-sealed time vault, that's fine with
me but I'm not going to go through all that trouble. They are
published online for the benefit of those who are interested in
the languages, and may want to study and learn them. If nobody
finds them interesting, that's fine too. I do this more for my
own intellectual stimulation that anythings else.
> That just rankles me.
>
> In any event, control is an illusion. We don't really HAVE
full control
> over how our information propagates out from us or is stored
by others
> once it leaves our fingers, *nor* *should* *we*. Once a piece
of
> information -- such as a conlang -- passes beyond our walls
into the
> outside world, there IS no real control of where it goes,
what people do
> with it, or how it gets collated by others. It could be
sliced and
> diced, remixed, spindled, mutilated, or otherwise monkeyed
with, and
> we'd have no way to stop it. *And* *we* *shouldn't*. It has
become the
> property of society, of civilization in general, by that
point.
>From a purely legal perspective we do have some control by
excerising copyrights. The way the trends are moving, I
wouldn't be surprised if intellectual property rights become
infinite. On the realistic side though, things do get copied and
passed around so there surely isn't total control.
> Sorry, Dana. :D
No worries.
Messages in this topic (79)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7.1. Re: Media mortality (< facing your own mortality)
Posted by: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 11, 2008 8:16 pm ((PDT))
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nomad of Norad -- David C Hall
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > This thread has got me thinking not about conlangs carrying
> on after me,
> > but about the tinkering I had done in the past which is
> still may have on
> > those old 5.25" Apple II formatted floppies. A couple years back, I
> > noticed a few people selling working Apple IIc's for $25-50
> on E-Bay so
> > I may just get one to transfer my old stuff to disk images.
> I have some
> > good emulator programs to use them, and they run
> considerably faster than
> > the original computer. I could always sell the computer
> once I've finished
> > transferring my files.
>
> I've still got just about all my old Radio Shack Color Computer
> floppies, and actually still have the old CoCo with floppy
> drive, so I
> could still read my old disks if I wanted to.
>
> There are programs for the peecee that will read CoCo
> floppies, though,
> so even without the CoCos I could still read the contents of
> them, I'd
> just need a 5.25" floppy drive. I actually have a couple of those
> stored here for that express purpose. You can still find
> them at older,
> small computer stores, the sort of place where they stockpile
> this stuff
> from machines they've dismantled for parts.
That's fine for the CoCo, but the Apple II was a very unique disk format. It's
unreadable by anything else becaus Apple didn't use a regular disk controller
chip like the others. They made a proprietary circuit of their own, which is
not compatible with any of the off-the-shelf disk controllers.
I had a bid for a complete IIC system on e-Bay last weekend but it got snapped
up by someone else at the last minute for $15.50. Not bad for a complete
system with monitor and printer, though I probably would have told the seller
to keep the printer to save the shipping costs.
Messages in this topic (79)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
8.1. Re: Word classification (was Re: The philosophical language fallacy
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:44 pm ((PDT))
Rick Harrison wrote:
> While working on the current revision of the ULD I've made a few changes in
> the categories. Here's how they are organized now, with a few examples of
> what's in each category. There's a subtle flow from each category to the
> next, a hidden (something for which there is no word).
>
> On the other hand, all categorizing schemes are arbitrary. Pondering the
> best category for a concept sometimes seems fun but sometimes seems
like a
> waste of limited time and energy. So in the long run I plan to remove
rigid
> categories from the ULD and invite people to contribute alternative
> classification schemes.
It may still be useful to have a "standard" classification for
reference, but I've had some ideas for alternative categories. A while
back I started on an organized vocabulary list for my languages, which
was intended to have 150 "essential" words, 300 "basic", 600
"intermediate", and up to 1200 "advanced" and 2400 "expert" words if I
ever got that far. I cross-referenced the words with the Swadesh list
and the ULD when relevant. So this makes it easy to sort by ULD index
and compare the classifications.
> 1. adpositions
> (above, under, in front of, behind)
I didn't have a separate category for these words, but included them
mainly in the "location", "time", and "motion" groups.
> 2. function words
> (and, if, not, you)
I put "when" and "where" into the "location" and "time" groups. Some of
the others ended up in a "grammatical" group along with words like
"for", "with", "one" (as in "I want the blue one"), and the pronouns.
> 3. people
> (child, mother, friend, hermit)
I kept the family members in this group; others ended up in a "social"
group along with words scattered throughout the other categories.
> 4. groupings of people
> (tribe, club, team) There are very few items in this category, possibly due
> to my reclusive nature -- maybe I have trouble remembering to add concepts
> that should go into this pigeonhole.
Words specifically dealing with government and military have their own
categories; the rest end up in the general "social" category.
> 5. body parts and substances
> (arm, heart, bone, urine)
I have a category for anatomical terms; other words in this list (e.g.,
"blood", "egg", "dung", "fetus", "gene") fall into a general "biology"
category, with "meat" included in the "food" category, and a "botany"
category for plant anatomy.
> 6. body terms
> (birth, male, fever, drunk)
These are divided between "biology" and "medical".
> 7. bodily actions
> (walk, eat, laugh, throw)
These are split among different categories (e.g. motion for "walk" and
"throw", food for "eat", emotion for "laugh")
> 8. the senses: light, sound, heat (etc)
> (red, loud, delicious, warm) This is a freshly reorganized category. Some of
> the entries such as "ugly" and "delicious" could have gone into category 19.
I also have sense as a category, including colors, sound-related words,
flavors, verbs having to do with the senses like "show" and "feel", and
related words.
> 9. animal species and types
> (mammal, mosquito, turkey) Items in this category are loosely bundled into
> sub-categories based on common folks' thought processes rather than
> scientific taxonomy.
I have a "mythology" category for words like "dragon", and "virus" goes
into a general "life" category for living things that aren't animals or
plants.
> 10. plant species and types
> (tree, banana, potato)
>
> 11. natural world
> (sky, rain, cave, volcano)
I split this into subcategories (geography, geology, weather, astronomy).
> 12. tools and basic artifacts
> (knife, hammer, chain, lamp)
I have a tool category -- "chain" is outside my first 3 lists and hasn't
been categorized yet, but I think it could go with the shape words.
Others in this general part of the ULD end up in various lists:
fasteners, weapons, transportation, time, shape, architecture,
measurement, etc.
> 13. containers, supports, furniture
> (basket, bottle, desk, bathtub) The current entry-numbering system only
> allows 100 items in each category. Category 12 overflowed, forcing me to
> come up with some way to skim off a few items into a new category. This is
> what came to mind; a category of things that "hold stuff in or hold stuff up."
I have containers and furniture as categories. Supports I guess would
include words like "shelf", which isn't in my first 3 categorized groups
so I don't have a category for it yet.
> 14. clothing and fabrics
> (silk, thread, shirt, shoe)
I've got thread with the "shape" words, but the rest of these words are
in a clothing category.
> 15. buildings and institutions
> (roof, kitchen, house, bank)
The first part of this list is an architecture category; the rest of the
words end up in categories related to the purpose of the building
(religion, business, medicine, transportation, knowledge, government).
> 16. government and hierarchy
> (border, tax, army, arrest)
These are split between government, military, and social categories.
> 17. business and transactions
> (money, give, receive, generous)
Most of these are in a business category, although some are government
or social.
> 18. religion and the supernatural
> (heaven, ghost, holy, funeral) Recently separated "angel" from "fairy" as
> requested long ago by Herman Miller.
Most of these words are in the religion category.
> 19. evaluation and judgement
> (good, fair, respect, doubt) This is a new category, designed to help
> eliminate the final "misc. abstract concepts" category that existed in
> earlier ULDs.
I have "doubt" in a knowledge category; "fair" and "respect" in the
general "social" category, "good" and "bad" I have in a "condition"
category along with various adjective-type words.
> 20. mind and private emotion
> (think, notice, remember, fear) Another new category, into which I stuffed
> emotions and mental processes that seem intrinsic or internal rather than
> social. Many of the items in this category could reasonably have been placed
> elsewhere, I suppose.
I have "emotion" and "knowledge" categories.
> 21. behavior and social emotion
> (pride, forgive, loyal, revenge)
These would mainly fit into the general "social" category, or into the
"emotion" category.
> 22. communication
> (language, message, alphabet, pencil)
I have a general "communication" category; some of the words in this
part of the ULD also fit into other categories.
> 23. games and entertainment
> (toy, music, baseball, animated cartoon)
I have music and games as distinct categories.
> 24. identity
> (same, different, resemble, version)
>
> 25. numerals
> (two, half, second, twice)
>
> 26. quantity
> (kilogram, total, many, part)
>
> 27. degree
> (more, less, at least, almost)
>
> 28. dimension
> (big, shrink, thick, position)
>
> 29. direction
> (up, south, destination, parallel)
>
> 30. motion
> (leave, send, carry, visit)
>
> 31. vehicles, etc.
> (motorcycle, bus, railroad, oar)
>
> 32. time and sequence
> (the past, recently, next, the day after tomorrow)
>
> 33. substances
> (water, metal, dirt, glass)
>
> 34. foodstuffs
> (bread, butter, soup, salad)
>
> 35. forms of matter
> (curve, helix, layer, juice) One of my favorite categories, although I don't
> think anyone else would agree that all these things are related.
Many of these are in a "shape" category; others are associated with
"chemistry" and "physics".
> 36. qualities of matter
> (smooth, clean, dry, hollow)
>
> 37. matter-related actions
> (boil, dig, mix, sink)
Many of these are in a general "action" group, although some go into
other categories ("hold, contain" with the containers,
> 38. misc. matter/energy terms
> (alkaline, atom, electricity, fire)
I have subcategories for "chemistry" and "physics" (I know, chemistry is
really physics, but in ordinary life the two seem distinct enough).
> 39. events and endeavors
> (result, task, progress, use)
>
> These categories will probably be added in the next version:
>
> 40. onomatopes
> (bang, boom, splash)
>
> 41. interjections
> (eek, ouch, oops)
>
> 42. specifics and proper nouns
> (Monday, Europe, Pacific Ocean)
How about pronouns?
Messages in this topic (29)
________________________________________________________________________
8.2. Re: Word classification (was Re: The philosophical language fallacy
Posted by: "And Rosta" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Jul 12, 2008 2:46 am ((PDT))
Jim Henry, On 09/07/2008 03:12:
> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 8:36 PM, And Rosta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Rick Harrison, On 08/07/2008 21:53:
>> In working on my own conlang
>> I have found that it is very useful to include argument structure as a
>> criterion. By 'argument structure' I mean what Lojban calls 'place
>> structure' or 'sumti(-place) structure'. In a language in which grammatical
>> behaviour mirrors logical properties, members of the same semantic category
>> behave alike if and only if they have the same argument structure, and it's
>> these that form natural rather than arbitrary categories.
>
> Do you mean distributional categories -- sets of words that are
> liable to occur in the same context as each other?
After I sent that message I realized that what I was describing is probably
applicabe far more to predicate-based languages like Lojban or Livagian than to
more naturalistic ones. In Livagian there is just one part of speech.
I meant predicates involving the same set of participant roles (in a system in
which the inventory of possible participant roles is not finite, and
participant roles can be as idiosyncratic as predicates are). Normally a
predicate's syntax-semantics has two parts: the set of participant roles, and
the residue. I find it kind of takes a conceptual weight off my mind -- by
making things simpler & tidier -- to group together predicates involving the
same set of participant roles and that differ only in terms of the residue; the
set of colour predicates would be an example.
> Yes, I think
> members of true distributional categories would necessarily
> have both the same argument structure and some aspect of
> meaning in common with each other. But does it make more
> sense, in making a hierarchy of distributional categories,
> to put the argument-structure categories at the top of the
> hierarchy, and then subdivide those argument-structure
> categories into subcategories based on their semantics,
> or vice versa? That is, would it make more sense to have
> top-level categories like animate noun, inanimate noun,
> intransitive verb, transitive verb, ditransitive verb, preposition,
> etc., and then subdivide the animate nouns into spirit, human,
> animal and the intransitive verbs into physical state,
> involuntary process, voluntary process, etc., --- or have top-level
> categories like "the mental world", "the physical world",
> "relationships", etc., and then subdivide "the mental world"
> into categories for e.g. thinking verbs, speaking verbs,
> nouns for mental states, adjectives for mental states, etc....?
The grouping together of predicates that differ by residue alone would I think
precede other taxonomizing, so that the taxonomies serve to classify sets of
predicates that differ only by residue.
Taxonomies are of limited use, because it is hard to classify polyadic
predicates in a taxonomy. For example, take a predicate meaning "X drinks milk
Y produced by lactator Z": it's hard to see where the predicate as a whole
would go in the hierarchy (except as a daughter of some very general node such
as Event); it's easier to see how X, Y and Z could separately be classified,
but that would work for a thesaurus but not as a vocabulary organization method
(given the reasonable assumption that each vocable should appear just once).
--And.
Messages in this topic (29)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
9. My forum
Posted by: "janko gorenc" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Jul 12, 2008 7:45 am ((PDT))
Hi all,
I would you tell all on this board that I have created own forum:
http://jankogorencforum.s2.bizhat.com/jankogorencforum.html
Can you join, and you send your thread messages.
JANKO GORENC
http://janko.gorenc.googlepages.com/
Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
10a. Re: Lots of Questions About Tones (more questions)
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:24 am ((PDT))
On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:38:36 -0400, Alex Fink <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>[snip]
>An unfortunate collision with the meaning of "register" that is 'complex of
>tone and phonation and other knock-on effects'.
Yep.
>[snip]
>Can there, or will there, be default numbered pitch levels for the tones in
>a contour(s1) tone language?
I think that will depend on the IPA and maybe on the linguist discussing the
language.
The IPA has
1 eXtra Low
2 Low
3 Medium
4 High
5 eXtra High
Most languages with phonemic/lexical/morphological have just two pitches,
High and Low; most of the rest have just three, High, Low, and Medium.
If a language has four relevant pitches, it seems to me the natural terminology
would be "Extra Low, Low, High, and Extra High"; but this could cause a
problem if the numbers used were {1, 2, 4, 5}, because it could make it seem
that a 24 (L-H) rise was not allotonic with a 12 (XL-L) rise and a 45 (H-XH)
rise, whereas it probably is. Of course the same applies to the falls; 42 is
probably allotonic with 21 and 54. And it carries over into those peaks, dips,
etc. that include such a rise or fall.
So maybe you want to use {1, 2, 3, 4} or {2, 3, 4, 5} for a language with four
relevant pitches, but no relevance to "absolute pitch".
And, of course, if there is a problem if a language has six relevant pitches.
I'm
not sure there are any such languages. The IPA doesn't appear to have heard
of them, if there are.
>Or are the realisations of the tones supposed to be completely in free
>variation?
I'd imagine they're in complementary distribution and are conditioned, at least
partially, by other factors, including perhaps both tonal sandhi and co-
occurring segmental features. I'm not sure that counts as "completely free
variation"; does it?
The point is they're "allotones", or at least that's what I expect and
understand.
>Or something else?
Is "allotones" something else?
>If you're just reporting the results of a discrimination task on single
>words each from different speakers presented in isolation, I could see this
>even for speakers of a language without a contour(s1) tone system. Surely
>register(s1) tonality doesn't imply perfect pitch.
I'm not sure what you said.
I doubt I'd disagree if I understood perfectly, but I understand only partially.
Could you explain, please?
And, by the way:
Thanks!
Messages in this topic (4)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/
<*> Your email settings:
Digest Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
