There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Saltani Phonology/Phonotactics
From: Leila Kalomi
1b. Re: Saltani Phonology/Phonotactics
From: Larry Sulky
1c. Re: Saltani Phonology/Phonotactics
From: Leila Kalomi
2a. Re: Angosey turns 12
From: Douglas Koller
3a. Re: Naming systems
From: Lars Finsen
3b. Re: Naming systems
From: Eugene Oh
3c. Re: Naming systems
From: Anthony Miles
3d. Re: Naming systems
From: Lee
3e. Re: Naming systems
From: Lee
3f. Re: Naming systems
From: Sai Emrys
4.1. Re: YAEPT: Gloucester and Worcester
From: Lars Finsen
4.2. Re: YAEPT: Gloucester and Worcester
From: David McCann
4.3. Re: YAEPT: Gloucester and Worcester
From: Douglas Koller
4.4. Re: YAEPT: Gloucester and Worcester
From: Gary Shannon
5a. Re: And/ or
From: Lars Finsen
6a. Unnamed Language Phonology
From: G. van der Vegt
6b. Re: Unnamed Language Phonology
From: Eugene Oh
7.1. Re: The 2010 Smiley Award Winner: amman iar
From: Jim Henry
7.2. Re: The 2010 Smiley Award Winner: amman iar
From: Sai Emrys
7.3. Re: The 2010 Smiley Award Winner: amman iar
From: Patrick Michael Niedzielski
8a. Pluractional Verbs
From: Anthony Miles
8b. Re: Pluractional Verbs
From: Eric Christopherson
9a. OT: Conlang Camping Trip (WAS: making an oral conlang)
From: Arthaey Angosii
9b. Re: OT: Conlang Camping Trip (WAS: making an oral conlang)
From: David Peterson
10a. Re: Graavgaaln phonolgy -- the consonants
From: Alex Fink
Messages
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1a. Saltani Phonology/Phonotactics
Posted by: "Leila Kalomi" leila_kal...@yahoo.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 8:31 am ((PDT))
So, what do y'all think of my phonology? Are there any sounds it needs/doesn't
need?
Stops: bilabial, alveolar, velar (romanized as p, t, k)
Affricate: alveolar (ts)
Flaps: lateral alveolar, alveolar (tl, r)
Fricatives: bilabial, alveolar, lateral alveolar, velar (f, s, lh, j)
Nasals: bilabial, alveolar, velar (m, n, nh)
Approximants: bilabial, palatal (w, y)
Vowels: open back unrounded, open-mid front unrounded, near-close near-front
unrounded, close-mid back rounded, near-close near-back (a, e, i, o, u)
Phonotactics: All combinations of vowels are allowed, and diphthongized or not
depending on how fast one is talking. Two-consonant clusters are allowed
anywhere but the beginning and end of a word, and consonants other than
fricatives and nasals may not end a word. In compounding words, nasals
assimilate to following stops/affricates/fricatives, which are then voiced
(though voicing is not phonemic.)
*pants* And I think that's it. Thoughts?
Messages in this topic (3)
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1b. Re: Saltani Phonology/Phonotactics
Posted by: "Larry Sulky" larrysu...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 10:13 am ((PDT))
Simple to pronounce (phonologically and phonotactically), with a couple of
oddballs for spice. I like it. :-)
---larry
P.S. Happy birthday to me.
Messages in this topic (3)
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1c. Re: Saltani Phonology/Phonotactics
Posted by: "Leila Kalomi" leila_kal...@yahoo.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 11:24 am ((PDT))
On Sat, 4 Sep 2010 12:51:55 -0400, Larry Sulky <larrysu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Simple to pronounce (phonologically and phonotactically), with a couple of
>oddballs for spice. I like it. :-)
>
>---larry
>
>P.S. Happy birthday to me.
Thanks; that's kind of the effect I was going for, so I guess I've succeeded.
And there's an alveolar lateral approximant (duh, it's in the name of the
language...) Dunno how I missed that one.
Messages in this topic (3)
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2a. Re: Angosey turns 12
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" lao...@comcast.net
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 9:13 am ((PDT))
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Bowman" <danny.c.bow...@gmail.com>
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Sent: Friday, September 3, 2010 8:53:22 PM
Subject: Angosey turns 12
These are my thoughts on this disappointingly hurricane-less night.
You *were* told, and not just by me as I recall. There was a brief rain squall
at about 4:00 this morning peppered with an occasional gust of wind. *Yawn*
(Apparently, people out on the Cape went swimming after the initial turbulence.
A little foolhardy from my perspective (there's a difference between being
blasé and downright slaphappy), but I've never understood that mentality. When
I lived in Taiwan, there were always news stories about the impending typhoon,
people saying "Gee, let's go the shore and watch the surf." and the mortalities
that ensued.) But I will say this: the humidity is broken. Yesterday was soupy
and gross; today is cool and divine.
If you're looking for hurricane thrills, you probably want to move south of the
Mason-Dixon line. If you originally hail from NM and haven't actually done the
snow thing, that ought to be exciting enough. And it'll be here soon enough
(say, tomorrow). Remember last year? Washington DC paralyzed for 2-3 days
because they don't do the snow thing? that could be you ;)
Meanwhile, if I ever went to New Mexico, I'd probably worry about a scorpion
setting up shop in one of my shoes. :)
Kou
Messages in this topic (4)
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3a. Re: Naming systems
Posted by: "Lars Finsen" lars.fin...@ortygia.no
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 9:23 am ((PDT))
Den 4. sep. 2010 kl. 05.22 skreiv Sai Emrys:
> The second is that I feel no particular national/cultural/familial
> affiliation. (This is partly the reason for wanting to drop "Emrys" as
> well; I dislike the implied Welsh affiliation.)
Anything wrong about welshness? If not for anything else the Welsh
ought to be admired linguistically for the resistance they are
putting up against English.
LEF
Messages in this topic (23)
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3b. Re: Naming systems
Posted by: "Eugene Oh" un.do...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 9:33 am ((PDT))
He did say he didn't want ANY affiliation.
Eugene
2010/9/4 Lars Finsen <lars.fin...@ortygia.no>
> Den 4. sep. 2010 kl. 05.22 skreiv Sai Emrys:
>
>
> The second is that I feel no particular national/cultural/familial
>> affiliation. (This is partly the reason for wanting to drop "Emrys" as
>> well; I dislike the implied Welsh affiliation.)
>>
>
> Anything wrong about welshness? If not for anything else the Welsh ought to
> be admired linguistically for the resistance they are putting up against
> English.
>
> LEF
>
Messages in this topic (23)
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3c. Re: Naming systems
Posted by: "Anthony Miles" mamercu...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 10:20 am ((PDT))
When I first heard of Sai, I didn't assume he was Welsh - but I did think he'd
adopted a Brithenig or Kerno Internet handle.
Messages in this topic (23)
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3d. Re: Naming systems
Posted by: "Lee" waywardwre...@yahoo.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 12:13 pm ((PDT))
No, but he implied it. ;)
Lee
--- On Sat, 9/4/10, Eugene Oh <un.do...@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Eugene Oh <un.do...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Naming systems
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Date: Saturday, September 4, 2010, 11:29 AM
He did say he didn't want ANY affiliation.
Eugene
2010/9/4 Lars Finsen <lars.fin...@ortygia.no>
> Den 4. sep. 2010 kl. 05.22 skreiv Sai Emrys:
>
>
> The second is that I feel no particular national/cultural/familial
>> affiliation. (This is partly the reason for wanting to drop "Emrys" as
>> well; I dislike the implied Welsh affiliation.)
>>
>
> Anything wrong about welshness? If not for anything else the Welsh ought to
> be admired linguistically for the resistance they are putting up against
> English.
>
> LEF
>
Messages in this topic (23)
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3e. Re: Naming systems
Posted by: "Lee" waywardwre...@yahoo.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 12:32 pm ((PDT))
After reading a couple posts you could do what one well-known person did. But
then what, end up being referred to as the ever cumbersome "The Conlanger
Formerly Known as Sai"? Or, eventually, "The Conlanger Formerly Known as the
Conlanger Formerly Known as Sai"?
Changing to a single name may sound appealing, but I have a feeling it won't
take too long before you grow extremely tired of jumping through hoops to
satisfy the very numerous "poorly designed" databases. Far too many systems
require first/given and last/family names, and there is no way to circumvent
that. Payroll systems will be particularly troublesome, because most will
require matching your legal name with two or more names.
Meanwhile, just go with Sai and enjoy it. If there is another one out there,
don't sweat it. If nothing else, sometimes the Googled confusion can be a good
thing.
Lee
--- On Thu, 9/2/10, Sai Emrys <s...@saizai.com> wrote:
From: Sai Emrys <s...@saizai.com>
Subject: Naming systems
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Date: Thursday, September 2, 2010, 11:27 PM
I'm considering legally changing my name to just "Sai" (mononymic),
and considering the implications of that. (See
http://saizai.livejournal.com/tag/naming for details.)
Currently, mononyms proper are rare outside Indonesia, Japanese
royalty, and celebrities. They're slightly more common as stage names
(rather than legal names). But for Westerners, it's quite unusual, and
I only know of a handful of people who're actually legally mononymic
(e.g. Cher, Prince, Teller).
So the only real argument in favor of my polynymy is to better please
silly databases... which is an interesting and (IMO) a bit odd
constraint to have in a cultural system.
ObCL: How do you handle names in your concultures? Any interesting
systems of mono/polynymy, descent, etc?
Especially with a large comparison pool (e.g. everyone on the planet,
in the case of domain names, global trademarks, and non-Indonesian
mononyms) it seems that preventing name conflicts would be difficult,
with a tendency for mononym + profession/location to crystallize into
a given name / family name system.
I'm curious what else y'all have come up with, or interesting ways of
handling that.
- Sai
Messages in this topic (23)
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3f. Re: Naming systems
Posted by: "Sai Emrys" s...@saizai.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 4:19 pm ((PDT))
On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 12:12 PM, Lee <waywardwre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> No, but he implied it. ;)
Not at all. I said that I don't wish to be affiliated with Welsh - as
an instance of that I don't wish to be affiliated with *any* such
thing.
I have nothing for or against it.
Imagine for a moment how you would feel if I started calling you
"Pat". (Pat, pretend that said "Lee".)
Is there "something wrong" with the name? Of course not. But you still
wouldn't want to be called it, simply because it's not yours.
That's how I feel about my "last name", birth name, nationality, (non)
religion, profession, etc. They aren't part of my identity, and it
discomfits me to have them imputed to be.
On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 12:30 PM, Lee <waywardwre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> But then what, end up being referred to as the ever cumbersome "The Conlanger
> Formerly Known as Sai"?
I'm not so extreme as to try to go for *no* name, so I think you're
exaggerating a bit. ;-)
Also, FWIW, I would still keep both former names as "doing business
as" names - which is e.g. how I currently can accept checks made out
to "Sai Emrys". So for such purposes I'd still have options.
In particular re. payroll: I'm mainly a consultant, and that's
actually what I do. The client will write on my check whatever I want
them to and not particularly care.
- Sai
Messages in this topic (23)
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4.1. Re: YAEPT: Gloucester and Worcester
Posted by: "Lars Finsen" lars.fin...@ortygia.no
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 9:39 am ((PDT))
Den 4. sep. 2010 kl. 02.43 skreiv Peter Collier:
> Glastonbury /gl...@nbri:/
Not /gl{stn=bri:/?
LEF
Messages in this topic (27)
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4.2. Re: YAEPT: Gloucester and Worcester
Posted by: "David McCann" da...@polymathy.plus.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 10:09 am ((PDT))
On Fri, 2010-09-03 at 21:47 -0500, Eric Christopherson wrote:
> I wonder where the triplet _-caster_ : _-cester_ : _-chester_ comes from. The
> regular result, IIANM, would be _chester_ (cf. _cheese_ < câseus); I wonder
> if _cester_ was ever pronounced /sester/ (vel sim.), or if it always had /tS/
> until that sound coalesced with the following /s/. (Are there any _-cester_
> place names still in existence where it's pronounced /s...@st@/ or /sEst@/?)
The Latin castra gave caster in some Old English dialects (hence
Lancaster), but usually ceaster (hence Chester). In towns with a
substantial Norman settlement, ceaster /čæstər/ became cestre /cestrə/
(hence Cirencester).
Messages in this topic (27)
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4.3. Re: YAEPT: Gloucester and Worcester
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" lao...@comcast.net
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 10:10 am ((PDT))
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eugene Oh" <un.do...@gmail.com>
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Sent: Saturday, September 4, 2010 3:41:21 AM
Subject: Re: YAEPT: Gloucester and Worcester
On 4 Sep 2010, at 03:47, Eric Christopherson <ra...@charter.net> wrote:
> On Sep 3, 2010, at 7:43 PM, Peter Collier wrote:
>> ...shire .../S@/ - e.g. Worcestershire /w...@s@/
> Where/when would one say /SI@/ instead of /S@/? Does that depend on the
> accent of the person saying it, or is it built into the pronunciation of the
> place?
Never, IME. Always /S@/. Compare "sheriff" < shire reeve.
It's fun to watch or hear Americans try to cope with the garum-esque condiment,
"Worcestershire sauce." Like any sane, rhotic-speaking American, I pronounce
"New Hampshire" as /... s...@r/. But if you keep the r's, "Worcestershire
sauce" becomes a little unwieldy. So you have to break it up somehow. The way I
teethed on it, it was "/'w...@rsir/ sauce", but others go with "/'w...@r"SaIr/
sauce" (a condiment used by hobbits?). I think the problem arises if you go for
"/'w...@rs@r/" sauce. Doable, yes. But more than one TV comedy has portrayed
the phenomenon of someone hurriedly slurring through the word like they were
having an embolism because they don't know how to deal with it, so you get
things like "/wrSStrsSr/ sauce".
Messages in this topic (27)
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4.4. Re: YAEPT: Gloucester and Worcester
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 10:40 am ((PDT))
On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 9:51 AM, Douglas Koller <lao...@comcast.net> wrote:
> It's fun to watch or hear Americans try to cope with the garum-esque
> condiment, "Worcestershire sauce."
And hence the reason why A-1 Sauce was invented.
--gary
Messages in this topic (27)
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5a. Re: And/ or
Posted by: "Lars Finsen" lars.fin...@ortygia.no
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 10:19 am ((PDT))
Den 3. sep. 2010 kl. 22.48 skreiv Alex Fink:
> That came up only a few months back
> http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?
> A2=ind1005C&L=CONLANG&P=R1814
> when I said
> | Beekes has _kai_ coming from IE *k;m=t- 'along, downwards'
Thanks.
> | (Beekes' dictionary is
> |
> http://www.ieed.nl/cgi-bin/startq.cgi?
> flags=endnnnl&root=leiden&amp;basename=\data\ie\greek
> | ; I don't see a good way to link to a record.)
Well, this link only results in an "invalid query" message. But the
dictionary is easy to find under www.ieed.nl. However, searching for
"kai" or "και" doesn't give any result. Searching for "katta" in
the etymology lead me to the entry for "k£ta", which I suppose must
be "κατά", with an origin "*km•th2e" looking similar to the one
you mentioned, and when I put "*km•t" in the origin field, it turns
up, along with 7 other records. I don't think the navigability of
that database is quite optimal.
I guess if you have to assume irregular loss of an s, the IE
etymology is not certain. But words used very frequently often do
something irregular.
LEF
Messages in this topic (8)
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6a. Unnamed Language Phonology
Posted by: "G. van der Vegt" gijsstri...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 12:43 pm ((PDT))
Plosives: [p] [b] [t] [d] [k] [g] (romanised: <p> <b> <t> <d> <k> <g>)
Fricatives: [f] [v] [s] [z] (<f> <v> <s> <z>)
Nasals: [m] [n] [ŋ] (<m> <n> <ñ>)
Vowels: [a] [a͡ᴙ] [e] [e͡ᴙ] [i] [i͡ᴙ] [u] [o] [...@] (<a> <â> <e> <ê> <i>
<î> <u> <o> <y>)
Note that romanisations differ as to which diacritic to use, there is
no standard diacritic, which sounds get romanised with a diacritic
-is- standardised, however.
<â>, <ê>, and <î> are referred to as growled vowels.
Basic syllable structure is (C)VC(C)
Only unvoiced consonants and nasals may form clusters, with nasals
always being first and plosives always being last.
The penultimate syllable receives stress, and while there is no upper
limit on the number of syllables in a lexeme, non-compounds will not
have more than five.
Syllable breaks are not normally written in the romanisation,
Example hypothetical words: nañtîvyft, eks, ifkusi, pespdôvan, mant
Messages in this topic (2)
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6b. Re: Unnamed Language Phonology
Posted by: "Eugene Oh" un.do...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 3:34 pm ((PDT))
I have a question: not sure what is created with the tie bar and the ᴙ.
Could that not be interpreted as a sequence of V + C?
Eugene
2010/9/4 G. van der Vegt <gijsstri...@gmail.com>
> Plosives: [p] [b] [t] [d] [k] [g] (romanised: <p> <b> <t> <d> <k> <g>)
> Fricatives: [f] [v] [s] [z] (<f> <v> <s> <z>)
> Nasals: [m] [n] [ŋ] (<m> <n> <ñ>)
> Vowels: [a] [a͡ᴙ] [e] [e͡ᴙ] [i] [i͡ᴙ] [u] [o] [...@] (<a> <â> <e> <ê> <i>
> <î> <u> <o> <y>)
>
> Note that romanisations differ as to which diacritic to use, there is
> no standard diacritic, which sounds get romanised with a diacritic
> -is- standardised, however.
>
> <â>, <ê>, and <î> are referred to as growled vowels.
>
> Basic syllable structure is (C)VC(C)
> Only unvoiced consonants and nasals may form clusters, with nasals
> always being first and plosives always being last.
> The penultimate syllable receives stress, and while there is no upper
> limit on the number of syllables in a lexeme, non-compounds will not
> have more than five.
> Syllable breaks are not normally written in the romanisation,
>
> Example hypothetical words: nañtîvyft, eks, ifkusi, pespdôvan, mant
>
Messages in this topic (2)
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7.1. Re: The 2010 Smiley Award Winner: amman iar
Posted by: "Jim Henry" jimhenry1...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 1:16 pm ((PDT))
On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 11:38 PM, Sai Emrys <s...@saizai.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 2:38 AM, David Johnson
> But I think that Jim's response is very apt. This is not something
> that the LCS per se can do much about other than to provide the web
> space.
>
> It's not magic. Ultimately some individual needs to find and put
> effort into this kind of archiving. In this case David's done it, but
> I don't think it's reasonable to expect that he'll always be able to.
At some point I could put up the conlang websites I got from Geocities
before it went down. At least some of them were apparently not
preserved at some or all of the Geocties mirrors that Rebecca
Bettencourt mentioned upthread. It should be fairly easy -- just a
matter of fixing some of the local links to be relative rather than
absolute, on some of the websites, and maybe changing links to other
Geocities sites to go through archive.org.
Do we want to create an archive.conlang.org with various
subdirectories for specific preserved sites, or go on making
subdomains like graywizard.conlang.org?
> If we had more people contributing their time, we
> could do more stuff with less individual effort.
What specific projects do we need more volunteers working on?
I know about the backlog of unedited podcasts -- that requires
specialized skills I don't have, though I'm planning to acquire
eventually.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
Messages in this topic (36)
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7.2. Re: The 2010 Smiley Award Winner: amman iar
Posted by: "Sai Emrys" s...@saizai.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 3:40 pm ((PDT))
On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 6:22 AM, David Johnson
<lethketa-boa...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> I was thinking more that the society might be the most appropriate body to
> co-ordinate conservation work, preventing duplication etc. Just as museums,
> libraries and archives tend to have national co-ordinating councils. That
> may involve no more than providing space (as you say) and perhaps a list of
> preservation projects?
"Coördinate" can mean, I think, two different things here.
One is a organization-level thing: giving an official centralized name
to it, providing web space, putting up whatever money is needed, etc.
That's certainly easy, and we will gladly do this if the second is
done.
The other is a person-level thing: figuring out what needs to be done,
getting more people involved, compiling projects, actually archiving
and fixing up the webpages, etc. This is back to the volunteers issue
- this kind of organizational work *is* work (albeit not hard to do),
and generally just requires one person (perhaps you? ;-)) who is
willing to start doing it.
IOW: if you want to do this, we'll give you the platform.
On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 1:05 PM, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Do we want to create an archive.conlang.org with various
> subdirectories for specific preserved sites, or go on making
> subdomains like graywizard.conlang.org?
I think the latter is better. I don't see a benefit to treating his
site as second-level in naming vs "live" sites. (I think it'd be a
good idea to put a notice on it explaining that it's archived and so
forth, as David has done, but that's different.)
Also, this way if one of our members dies (please don't?), their web
address would remain constant.
> What specific projects do we need more volunteers working on?
Off the top of my head:
* creating a nice template for the Fiat Lingua journal (almost done w/
copyedit; this'll be needed very soon)
* podcast audio editing
* LCC video editing
* finding and archiving dead sites (per above)
* graphics design for schwag (e.g. assembling the "fiat lingua" translations)
* writing a better guide for newbies / outsiders, explaining all the
stuff we take for granted that people know (different goal than e.g.
the LCK)
* collecting references to conlang-related academic work
* collaborating on a "learn linguistics through conlanging" textbook
* helping organize LCC4 (and 5, 6, ...)
* collecting film / game / novelist / etc contacts to advertise
professional conlanging services to
* helping with the FiatLingua Twitter account by finding and posting
neat conlang-related tidbits
* helping mail out membership letters and pins, set up member websites, etc
Basically anything y'all think "hey couldn't the LCS do X", the answer
is probably "that's a great idea - but we handful of people don't
enough time to do it for you; wanna help?".
It's easy to contribute, and the more people we have working together
the easier it is for all - and the more sustainable, too (less
burnout, more fun, more organizational continuity if one of us is run
over by a bus or becomes a luddite, etc).
- Sai
Messages in this topic (36)
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7.3. Re: The 2010 Smiley Award Winner: amman iar
Posted by: "Patrick Michael Niedzielski" patrickniedziel...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 4:19 pm ((PDT))
Hi! I would love to help out anyway I can.
> > What specific projects do we need more volunteers working on?
>
> Off the top of my head:
>
> * creating a nice template for the Fiat Lingua journal (almost done w/
> copyedit; this'll be needed very soon)
Depending on the software, I can most certainly do this. I'm good with
LaTeX, but I can also use Scribus on GNU/Linux.
> * graphics design for schwag (e.g. assembling the "fiat lingua" translations)
I would love to do this.
> * writing a better guide for newbies / outsiders, explaining all the
> stuff we take for granted that people know (different goal than e.g.
> the LCK)
Heh...I'd actually love to have one of these myself... ^_^"
> * helping with the FiatLingua Twitter account by finding and posting
> neat conlang-related tidbits
On that note, I've noticed that there is a identi.ca group with the
official "Tower of Babel" image called
"conlang" (http://identi.ca/group/conlang), but there is absolutely no
activity. I'd like to go about resurrecting this; I was wondering who
owns it. I will contact the user who started it 8 months ago, but it
would be easier if someone here was the founder (and could tell me).
> It's easy to contribute, and the more people we have working together
> the easier it is for all - and the more sustainable, too (less
> burnout, more fun, more organizational continuity if one of us is run
> over by a bus or becomes a luddite, etc).
>
> - Sai
Cheers,
Patrick
--
Humm and Strumm <http://hummstrumm.blogspot.com/>, a Free Software 3D
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Messages in this topic (36)
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8a. Pluractional Verbs
Posted by: "Anthony Miles" mamercu...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 2:58 pm ((PDT))
I'm almost done with the basic grammar (13 pages!) of "proper" Na'gifi Fasu'xa.
The last section is a section on reduplicated roots. The actual reduplication
pattern will be based on Washo root-reduplication, but the meaning, at least
for the verbs, will be typically pluractional. I tried searching the conlang
archive for 'pluractionality' and 'pluractional verbs', but found nothing. I
find it
hard to believe that this subject has never come up. Has anybody used
pluractionality in their conlangs? Any advice? Any warnings?
I can give a description of Washo root reduplication, but IMO that should be a
separate topic, and I think I've reaching my list quota for today.
Messages in this topic (2)
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8b. Re: Pluractional Verbs
Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" ra...@charter.net
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 3:27 pm ((PDT))
On Sep 4, 2010, at 4:56 PM, Anthony Miles wrote:
> I'm almost done with the basic grammar (13 pages!) of "proper" Na'gifi
> Fasu'xa.
> The last section is a section on reduplicated roots. The actual reduplication
> pattern will be based on Washo root-reduplication, but the meaning, at least
> for the verbs, will be typically pluractional. I tried searching the conlang
> archive for 'pluractionality' and 'pluractional verbs', but found nothing. I
> find it
> hard to believe that this subject has never come up. Has anybody used
> pluractionality in their conlangs? Any advice? Any warnings?
Pluractionality (or verbal plurality) is one of my favorite ideas. I'm using it
in my main language family, but I've never really written much about that
family because so much in undecided. I don't have any advice or warnings per
se, but here's how I am using it:
In that family, Dhaqran, the idea is that pluractionality originally denoted
separate, repeated events, but later on it denotes either that -or- plurality
of a verb's subject or object (depending on transitivity). Further on, in some
languages, it comes to denote only subject or object plurality.
I think pluractionality might also evolve into habituality in some languages of
that family. For adjective-like stative verbs, it will evolve into an
intensifier.
On reduplication: I just got the book _The evolution of grammar_ (Bybee,
Perkins, Pagliuca); what I've discovered so far from skimming it is that if a
language has several kinds of reduplication, the forms that come closest to
full reduplication tend to be the newest ones in the language; and the newest
ones tend to have meanings closer to iteration or repetition.
There are two pathways (which share endpoints) given in the book along which
for reduplication to develop:
Iterative > continuative > progressive > imperfective > intransitive
Iterative > frequentative > habitual > imperfective > intransitive
I haven't seen anything in the book specifically about pluractionality yet, but
I will look.
One problem I have is with intransitive verbs that mean things like "to have
X", e.g. "to have a hand". What I *want* is for an expression like "I
have-a-hand" marked for pluractionality to mean "I have hands", but according
to my rules (and IIRC the general tendency of verbal plurality in natlangs), it
should instead impart plurality on "I", since that's the subject. Must do some
more thinking on this. (I don't want to simply make possessive verbs into
transitive verbs.)
>
> I can give a description of Washo root reduplication, but IMO that should be
> a
> separate topic, and I think I've reaching my list quota for today.
Washo looks pretty cool.
Messages in this topic (2)
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9a. OT: Conlang Camping Trip (WAS: making an oral conlang)
Posted by: "Arthaey Angosii" arth...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 3:44 pm ((PDT))
On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 7:52 PM, Brett Williams <mungoje...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 11:35 AM, Gary Shannon <fizi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Back in the late 60's or early 70's a friend of mine and I went
>> camping one weekend. He, being a philosophy grad student and me being
>> a computer science grad student, we decided it would be fun to not
>> speak a word of English during the whole trip, but to make up whatever
>> language we needed as the need arose.
>>
>> Having no linguistics knowledge at the time, however, we quite
>> predictably ending up relexing English to the tune a a hundred words
>> or so, and depended heavily on grunting and pointing.
>
>
> Hmm, I wonder if a CONLANG list camping trip would have a different
> experience. :D
I have to point out that a CONLANG list camping trip would be
*awesome*. Anyone else? Lots of great camping to be had on the West
Coast... :)
--
AA
Messages in this topic (2)
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9b. Re: OT: Conlang Camping Trip (WAS: making an oral conlang)
Posted by: "David Peterson" deda...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 4:11 pm ((PDT))
On Sep 4, 2010, at 3◊41 PM, Arthaey Angosii wrote:
> I have to point out that a CONLANG list camping trip would be
> *awesome*. Anyone else? Lots of great camping to be had on the West
> Coast... :)
I would be so totally down for that if it didn't involve the word
"camping". What about a CONLANG list trip? Say, we all find
a wealthy donor who sends us on a cruise to Jamaica, or the
like--full service, meals supplied, functional bathrooms, air
conditioning, the whole bit. Doesn't that sound nice?
Camping, on the other hand, sounds...dusty.
-David
*******************************************************************
"Sunlü eleškarez ügrallerüf üjjixelye ye oxömeyze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.com/
LCS Member Since 2007
http://conlang.org/
Messages in this topic (2)
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10a. Re: Graavgaaln phonolgy -- the consonants
Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Sep 4, 2010 4:17 pm ((PDT))
On Fri, 3 Sep 2010 21:57:25 -0700, Garth Wallace <gwa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>I'd say, though I'm hardly an expert, that affricates pattern as a
>third type of release (no release, aspirated, affricate). The palatal
>affricates are a partial collapse of the system, the palatal aspirated
>stops having merged with the affricates and the palatal unaspirated
>stops having merged with another POA (e.g. /c/ -> /k/). How's that
>sound?
Hm. It's something to consider. The cases I can think of where "affricate"
is sensibly treated as a release, it's mostly developed from noisy
aspiration; so maybe whatever process created the current aspirates pushed
old aspirates to affricates. That said, AIUI it's only voiceless aspiration
(i.e. genuine aspiration, not breathiness) that does this, so I don't know
where to get the voiced affricates then.
Moreover, if one goes with an origin in a release contrast, then I'd really
want the fricatives to show that release contrast too! The fricatives match
up very nicely with the stops and affricates taken together; it seems quite
tidy to assume developments with p : pf) :: p\ : f, t : ts) :: T : s, etc.,
and if we don't do something such we're left with a huge surfeit of
protofricative PoAs. So what in the world could do that? This is more or
less the [+-strident] of some feature systems, but I don't know of any real
evidence that [strident] is actually a homogeneous thing across different
places (parsimony of the model is not evidence!).
Alex
Messages in this topic (4)
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