There are 25 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: Naming systems From: Roger Mills 2a. Re: USAGE: how did English initial <x> come to be /z/? From: Roger Mills 3a. How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/? From: Nathan Unanymous 3b. Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/? From: John Vertical 3c. Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/? From: David McCann 4a. Re: Luggnaggian From: Matthew Turnbull 5a. Re: Cheyoon (Mermish) Orthography From: Anthony Miles 6a. Re: And/or From: Anthony Miles 7. Náŋifi Fasúxa Annotated Babel Text 11:1-3 From: Anthony Miles 8a. Re: Need help with phonetics/phonology at CALS From: Alex Fink 8b. Re: Need help with phonetics/phonology at CALS From: John Vertical 9. Llárriésh (Llama) Trilinear Babel - Genesis 11:1-9 From: Richard Littauer 10a. Na'vi Experts Camp From: Richard Littauer 10b. Re: Na'vi Experts Camp From: Brett Williams 10c. Re: Na'vi Experts Camp From: Richard Littauer 11a. Marking of some nouns determined by properties of others From: Peter Bleackley 11b. Re: Marking of some nouns determined by properties of others From: Adam Walker 11c. Re: Marking of some nouns determined by properties of others From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets 12a. Re: Graavgaaln grammar From: Adam Walker 13a. Re: Graavgaaln phonology the syllable From: Adam Walker 14a. Re: Unnamed Language Phonology From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets 15a. Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology From: Gary Shannon 15b. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology From: Jerry Muelver 15c. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology From: Logan Kearsley 15d. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology From: Larry Sulky Messages ________________________________________________________________________ 1.1. Re: Naming systems Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com Date: Wed Sep 8, 2010 9:04 am ((PDT)) --- On Mon, 9/6/10, Brett Williams <mungoje...@gmail.com> wrote: > > [The Yanomamo's) taboo against saying someone's name became even > stronger in > death. Speaking a name of the dead could draw > malevolent attention > from their spirit. When someone died, their name was > laid aside and > "never" said again (in practice the taboo would last at > least a few > months). The most interesting part is, people were > named ordinary > words, and those words would not be used after their death > even for > their normal purpose!! They'd just have to use some > sort of > circumlocution for the duration of the taboo. > That taboo is apparently quite widespread. It seems to account, in many Austronesian languages, for divergences in vocabulary that skew peoples' lexicostatistical analyses (boo hoo). It's known to be (or have been) present in one well-recorded language, Bare'e of Central Sulawesi (now called Pamona)-- the 1920s dictionary by N. Adriaani has dozens of taboo-substitute words for common items. Some are loans, some are adaptations of other lexemes, some are just mysterious.... it's all very interesting. Messages in this topic (30) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 2a. Re: USAGE: how did English initial <x> come to be /z/? Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com Date: Wed Sep 8, 2010 9:06 am ((PDT)) --- On Wed, 9/8/10, Eric Christopherson <ra...@charter.net> wrote: > > Okay, maybe that's unremarkable epenthesis, but it > could well be *slight > > involuntary shudder* the same rationale that makes > Yreka, California be > > /waIr\ik@/ and so on -- how in the world do such > things seem compelling to > > anyone!? > > Wow, before I got to the pronunciation, I was sure you were > going to say it was /j@"rik@/, like how some people > pronounce Yvonne /j@"van/. (Not to mention Yvgeny on > Delocated.) > A common, and much ridiculed, mispronunciation of Ypsilanti [Ips@'lænti] Michigan (named after a Greek hero IIRC) is [jIps@'lænti] Messages in this topic (15) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 3a. How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/? Posted by: "Nathan Unanymous" nathanms...@gmail.com Date: Wed Sep 8, 2010 11:09 am ((PDT)) How did English <u> get to be pronounced both /U/ and /V/? I have a conlang with a similar vowel system, in which /U/ and /V/ are allophonic with rules so complex an entire book was written on it by my conworld's linguist. Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ 3b. Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/? Posted by: "John Vertical" johnverti...@hotmail.com Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 8:46 am ((PDT)) On Wed, 8 Sep 2010 14:05:54 -0400, Nathan Unanymous wrote: >How did English <u> get to be pronounced both /U/ and /V/? Generally, it's a split conditioned by the preceding consonant: [U] remains after labials ("butcher", "full", "push", "wolf", "woman" - but not /m/ for some reason; "much", "mud"), and becomes [V] elsewhere. This then became phonemic for various reasons, including the loaning of words like "putt" and I think "tush" from northern dialects that did away with [U] entirely, and the introduction of secondary [U] from contraction of /u:/ before certain consonants. The latter most regularly occur'd before /k d/ ("book", "food", etc.) but there seems to have been some variation ("flood, blood"; "foot, soot", still /u:/ in some British dialects IIRC; in many dialects "roof", "room"). This didn't affect /ju:/ (might have still been /iU/ by the time), which was yet later reduced to plain /u:/ after /l r/, hence we again get /u:k/ in words like "fluke". "Spook" seems to be a later loan from Dutch? John Vertical Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ 3c. Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/? Posted by: "David McCann" da...@polymathy.plus.com Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 9:12 am ((PDT)) On Wed, 2010-09-08 at 14:05 -0400, Nathan Unanymous wrote: > How did English <u> get to be pronounced both /U/ and /V/? I have a conlang > with a similar vowel system, in which /U/ and /V/ are allophonic with rules > so > complex an entire book was written on it by my conworld's linguist. The sequence of changes in Southern England was cut: kÊt > kɤt > kÊt > kÉt (USA), kat (UK) foot: fuËt > fÊt This is a good example of the falsity of the Neogrammarian theory. If English were an ancient, imperfectly attested language, we would explain the contrast of "butcher" [bÊt] and "butter" [bat] as dialect mixture. But we cannot have a rule that /Ê/ remains after a labial, making "butter" a loan, because there is no English dialect from which it could be borrowed (having [pat] for "put"). And we cannot explain all cases of /Ê/ after a labial as loanwords from the north, because there are no exceptions in odd corners of Cornwall or Sussex; it's ridiculous to expect that every village in Southern England would have borrowed northern forms for common words like "butcher, pull, full", even where they maintained local forms like /viËld/ "field". Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 4a. Re: Luggnaggian Posted by: "Matthew Turnbull" ave....@gmail.com Date: Wed Sep 8, 2010 12:30 pm ((PDT)) Fluft drin Yalerick Dwuldum pra -stra -d mirplush. Language my mouth friend be.at-REALIS-stem trans.imperfect SOV word order, with Posessee Posessor order fluft language drin 1sg yalerick mouth dwuldum friend prad be.at -stra- realis mirplush transitivizer with imperfect aspect Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 5a. Re: Cheyoon (Mermish) Orthography Posted by: "Anthony Miles" mamercu...@gmail.com Date: Wed Sep 8, 2010 7:57 pm ((PDT)) Possibly I am misidentifying some of the "voiceless" vowels (I _can_ pronounce the distinctions). Or maybe not. The vowels are meant to be pronounceable, but not necessarily well or easily by us humans. The vowels, slightly barky, are key here. I can alter the consonantal "allophones" around, if it seems advisable, although I guess I have to use /c/ and /j/ now since it's in the name of the language. I'm generally more interested in the grammar of a conlang than making it pretty. Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 6a. Re: And/or Posted by: "Anthony Miles" mamercu...@gmail.com Date: Wed Sep 8, 2010 8:06 pm ((PDT)) I'm not sure about "or", but "and/with" in Na'gifi Fasu'xa is /pataka'/, the prepositional form of /pataka/ "have/hold". /pu'mafa pataka' ti'gafi pumafa' pu'mafa/ means "I and my brother" (the /pumafa'/ is the genitive prepositional construct). Semantic note: The preposition /pataka'/ has an equal sense, whereas the related participles /a'ptaka/ and /apta'ka/, "holding" and "being held", describe unequal relationships. Make of that what you will. Messages in this topic (18) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 7. Náŋifi Fasúxa Annotated Babel Text 11:1-3 Posted by: "Anthony Miles" mamercu...@gmail.com Date: Wed Sep 8, 2010 8:16 pm ((PDT)) 1:1 áptaka atkatí kámanu maníŋa náŋifi ŋáfisu náŋifi fasúxa. The whole earth had one language [and] a common tongue. áptaka active vb (msg), to hold atkatí adv (msg) distal past kámanu n (msg) world, subject of sentence maníŋa adj (msg) whole, entire; modifies kámanu náŋifi n (msg) language, direct object of sentence ŋáfisu adj (msg) one; modifies náŋifi náŋifi second direct object fasúxa adj (msg) common; modifies náŋifi 11:2 apuuxpuut atkaus pínaax. íkmaus atkaus ŋásiup kananu kanafú Sinán. áknaaf atkaim kanaaf ŋásiup. The people easted. They found the plain at Shinar. They dwelt there. apuuxpuut v (mpl) to east; reduplicated form of xáputu, the east atkaus adv (mpl) medial past pínaax n (mpl) man íkmaus v (mpl) to find ŋásiup pron (mpl) 3rd person; Subject of sentence kananu n (msg) plain; object of sentence kanafú prep (msg); at; takes case and gender of kananu áknaaf v (mpl) to stay there atkaim adv (mpl) proximal past kanaaf -adv (mpl) there 11:3 ínxiip atkaim ŋásiup tamaaŋ ŋásiaf. úŋxauk aŋsiúx púmaaf túnais uŋxáuk. úŋxauk aŋsiúx ukŋait púmaaf ŋásiup. úŋxuuk atkaim ŋásiup túnais uŋxáuk. úŋxuuk atkaim aŋsiix ŋásiup túnais. ú&#331;xuuk atkaim ŋásiup Tas. úŋxuuk atkaim aŋsiix ŋásiup Mustas. They said to one another. Let us burn burned stones. Let us burn them well. They used burned stones. They did not use stones. They used tar'. They did not use mortar. ínxiip v (mpl) to say tamaaŋ prep (mpl) journey/to; modifies ŋásiup ŋásiaf pron (mpl) self úŋxauk v (mpl) to burn aŋsiúx adv (mpl) jussive púmaaf pron (mpl) we túnais uŋxáuk n + pass ptcpl burnt stones= bricks ukŋait adv (mpl) greatly, thoroughly úŋxuuk v (mpl) to use aŋsiix adv (mpl) negative particle Tas - tar Mustas - mortar Messages in this topic (1) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 8a. Re: Need help with phonetics/phonology at CALS Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com Date: Wed Sep 8, 2010 8:26 pm ((PDT)) On dental/alveolars, I always thought the category was meant for sounds which were ambiguously dental or alveolar, or not so specified in the source. But the other day I was looking up these categories of Wikipedia, and there they follow a different set of conventions: "dental" is what I'd more explicitly call dental laminal, "alveolar" is alveolar apical, and "denti-alveolar" is used for alveolar laminal. Kaleissin, you were going to get the UPSID book? It'd be good to check whether they're doing a similar thing... Alex Messages in this topic (12) ________________________________________________________________________ 8b. Re: Need help with phonetics/phonology at CALS Posted by: "John Vertical" johnverti...@hotmail.com Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 9:11 am ((PDT)) >On dental/alveolars, I always thought the category was meant for sounds >which were ambiguously dental or alveolar, or not so specified in the >source. But the other day I was looking up these categories of Wikipedia, >and there they follow a different set of conventions: >"dental" is what I'd more explicitly call dental laminal, "alveolar" is >alveolar apical, and "denti-alveolar" is used for alveolar laminal. > >Kaleissin, you were going to get the UPSID book? It'd be good to check >whether they're doing a similar thing... > >Alex "Denti-alveolar" is not particular to Wikipedia, it does really mean that. However I don't think this is the same as UPSID's "dental/alveolar". John Vertical Messages in this topic (12) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 9. Llárriésh (Llama) Trilinear Babel - Genesis 11:1-9 Posted by: "Richard Littauer" richard.litta...@gmail.com Date: Wed Sep 8, 2010 9:44 pm ((PDT)) Here is the Babel text for Llárriésh (also called Llama), which was a one month project that I attempted. I had in mind the idea that it would be good to create a language entirely from scratch within a month, with some initial paramaters, and I think I did pretty well. More details can be found on the languages home at my Conlang website: http://llama.conlang.org Any thoughts would have course be very appreciated. 1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 1. Dodhéna bo ia á llevóda ram ó dolleva hóni ro dáoíyúmiones. 1. world(subj) begin whole the(hypothetical) language(predicate) one and speech(predicate) common attribution is-progressive-durative-stative-sg.. 2 As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 2. east-toward now man-pl. move-intransitive-imperfective-continuative- seriative-pl.. (they(subject)) plain(object) then Shinar in find-perfective-pl.. (they) settle-perfective-transitional-pl.. 2. Abétuá as llára póanôráwaïnakéon. Bho gum Shinar fo horówon. Súmówohowon. 3 They said to each other, Come, lets make bricks and bake them thoroughly. They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 3. Rúntátuá gum frótáon pó tûn wuá odháon! Tûn as gona aíu oák ó híkti nátoríyétéíktion. Rrí gon thon nefá radon ó soronu dalúna üç dáo. 3. he(4p.)-pl.-reflexive(subject) then say-imperfective-pl. indirect.speech we(truncated)(subject) hortative come-imperfective-pl.! we(trnc.)(subj.) now brick-pl.(object) topic make and thoroughly bake-progressive-distributive- terminal-pl.. so (they)(subject.) brick(object) stone instead.of use-pl. and tar mortar for(instrumental) is. 4 Then they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth. 4. Rûn gum frótáon pó wuá odhon! Tûn túntátuá ásh góré gôr kúna kûn rrhískats li ro hewnashî dáoshî weïnáyaïnon, ró ken túnátuá ásh oákówon ó nuçhllára yowúll dodhéna ia kyu na rodaowóas. 4. they(4p. trnc.)(subj.) then say-impf.-pl. indirect.speech hortative (we)(subj.) come-pl.! we(trunc.) we(trnc.)-pl.-rflx. for(purpose) city relative.clause tower rel.cl. heaven towards attire. reach-subordinate is-sub. build-impf.-cont.-pl., so.that(purpose) name we(trnc.)-pl.-rflx.- for(purpose) make-perf.-pl. and scattered(trnc.)-man-pl. face earth whole genitive over negation-is-perf.-momentaneous. 5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 5. Bó Ngádhol á 'ünskóes. Kuná kûn ó góré gôr llára weïníyétéîsh á adaní óawáún. 5. but Lord the descend-perf.-sg.. tower rel.cl. and city rel.cl. man-pl. make- prog.-dist.-subord. the want(modal verb) see-impf.-infinitive. 6 The LORD said, If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 6. Ngádhol á kla frótóes pó dínta ô rúnódan ram dáo. Ki ô llevoda dásh frótéllon. Fáu fén fuó dawáódaícúon, fái hui rrodu dû ovawáon dashîún goy hwéi ók daóún. 6. Lord the then say-perf.-sing ind.sp. they(3p.pl) generic.mood people one is. also gen.m. language same speak-iterative-pl.. if as this(abstract) act-impf.- diversative-inceptive-pl., then definite no-thing rel.cl plan-impf.-pl. do- subord.-inf. able future deduced.information do-perf.-inf.. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other. 7. As da odhas. Tûn wúa 'ünská ó llevoda dîn kyu peshiló oho dîn díntátuá royënówon. 7. now imperative come-moment. We(trnc.) hort. descend-impf. and language they(trnc.) genitive confuse-perf. so.that(resultative) they(trnc.) they-refl. neg.-understand-perf.-pl.. 8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 8. Rrí Ngádhol á rûn nuçhfinâróes kópa muc dodhéna ia na, ó rûn góré á kúp weïníyún. 8. so Lord the they(4p. trnc.) scatter-transitive-perf.-sg. there from world whole over, and they(4p. trnc.) city the stop build-prog.-inf. 9 That is why it was called Babel because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth. 9. Fá thó Peshil ken góré kyu dáo. Kópa hóra Ngádhol á llevoda á dodhéna ia á kyu peshilóes. Ngádhol bóúkti á rûn kópa muc yowúll á dodhéna ia kyu nuçhfinâróasúkties. 9. that(abstract) reason Confuse name city genitive is. there because Lord the language the world entire the genitive confuse-perf.-sg.. Lord end.of.story(share.information-terminative) the them(trnc.) there from face the world entire genitive scatter-transitive-perf.-moment.-term.-sg.. Messages in this topic (1) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 10a. Na'vi Experts Camp Posted by: "Richard Littauer" richard.litta...@gmail.com Date: Wed Sep 8, 2010 9:51 pm ((PDT)) Some of you might like to know that Na'vi is continually growing in interesting ways. Most recently, it was announced today that there will be a small conference and camp for a handful of experts in the language - as far as I know, exclusively from the fan site www.LearnNavi.org - who will meet with Paul Frommer for a weekend in California to talk about the state of the language, what else can be done to get the word out, ask questions, and the like. Here's the bulletin that was posted publicly today about it: § A Na'vi Workshop is to happen this year the first weekend in October! This workshop will allow us to work with him, in person, for a few days to better understand and flesh out some aspects of the language. The history: a while back, Karyu Pawl expressed interest in getting some of the most advanced Navi speakers in one place for a workshop to discuss and learn more about the language. This workshop would allow us to work with Dr. Frommer over the course of a couple days to learn the language more completely, identify points that need to be expanded, and address some of the prominent outstanding questions about the language. This knowledge would be documented by the attendees of the workshop and brought back to the community for the benefit of everyone. Essentially, this is a teach the teachers workshop. The event will take place in California at a members private residence over the course of October 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Well have roughly 15 members coming from all across America and even overseas. Additionally, a phone conference line will be set up for a couple of hours during one of the days so some of our more linguistically engaged members overseas who couldnt travel could participate for one of the days of the workshop. Karyu Pawl is very excited for this as I hope we all can be. His willingness to travel several hundred miles for this meeting at his own expense is a good indication of Karyu Pawls commitment to this language and this community and we cant thank him enough. Now, unfortunately, we have some bad news regarding the workshop but we want to stress this to avoid any hurt feelings. At Dr. Frommers request and for the sheer logistics of the workshop we had to limit the number of people who could attend. Given the scope of our community we had a hard choice on how to come up with a fair way by which we could decide who should be invited as well as whether the planning should be public or not and how the event should be coordinated and announced. The moderators of the website decided that the fairest system would be a panel composed of several founding members of the website that would nominate potential members to be included. We nominated the members who were either the most active in the language and forums or who we felt were the most advanced with the language and would benefit the most from this workshop. Once ordered, we messaged the members and asked if they were interested and able to commit the time and to travel to the workshop. If a member declined then they were given the chance to nominate someone in their place or the next person in line was then asked, and so on until all the spots were filled. Now, we understand that there may be some hurt feelings for those who were not invited. Ayoheru txoa livuyu. We deeply apologize. Limiting the number of participants for this particular meeting was at Pauls request and simply based on the practicality of accommodating the group at the available venue. We would have loved to have everyone who wanted to come be able to join us but that simply is not feasible this time. This is not intended to be a purely social event. The idea here is to teach the teachers in our community and the original planners coordinated carefully with Karyu Pawl about his ideas on how to approach that goal. However, if you still feel some injustice has been done to the community, please contact me or one of our administrators in private. Keep in mind, this is unlikely to be the only time Karyu Pawl meets with members of the community. We fully intend to try to continue to work with him so that in the future there will be more broadly open opportunities for our members to meet with him in person. Do not worry though, there will be pictures, updates, videos, and more from this event. Everyone who is a part of our great community will have the chance to learn from the results of the meeting and thereby benefit greatly. We cant give enough thanks to Karyu Pawl for donating his valuable time for this workshop, nor to the organizers of the workshop, to the administrators of LearnNavi.org, and to you, the members of LearnNavi.org; without whom this could have never happened nor could this language have attained such success. Your constructive comments and questions are welcome here below, and if you have Navi language-specific topics that you still feel need answers, please make sure that they are captured in the Language Updates section in http://forum.learnnavi.org/language-updates/combining-our-efforts-ii/. Please read through all of the posted themes and questions before adding more. Your question may already be slated in the mix. Approximately 10 days from now we (ALL OF US in the community) will be voting on which are the most important to the language overall to help Karyu Pawl prioritize how he handles getting them addressed. In closing, thank you to everyone at LearnNavi.org, everyone who is learning Navi or has shown support for us, and especially to Dr. Paul Frommer and James Cameron, without whom this great language and great movie could never have even existed. § Should be interesting! This is the most publicly advertised conlang currently, that I know of. The fact that it was part of the highest grossing movie of all time secures that position above Klingon or Elvish, I think... Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ 10b. Re: Na'vi Experts Camp Posted by: "Brett Williams" mungoje...@gmail.com Date: Wed Sep 8, 2010 10:05 pm ((PDT)) My word! I knew Na'vi was successful, but the very idea of a conlang gathering having to be concerned with LIMITING the number of attendees... that's rather blowing my mind. I haven't even seen Avatar yet (I rarely watch movies), but I suppose I ought to check it out. Huh. <3, la stela selckiku aka mungojelly aka bret-ram aka veret'he aka brett Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ 10c. Re: Na'vi Experts Camp Posted by: "Richard Littauer" richard.litta...@gmail.com Date: Wed Sep 8, 2010 10:06 pm ((PDT)) Well, considering that www.LearnNavi.org has well over 5k members, it's not surprising at all. A couple of hundred of those are intermediates, and a couple of score of those could probably be called experts (Myself included. I am hoping to find a way to subsidise a transatlantic flight so I can make it from Scotland.) It is in no way a small community, anymore. And Avatar is ok - but the language is better. :P On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 1:00 AM, Brett Williams <mungoje...@gmail.com> wrote: > My word! I knew Na'vi was successful, but the very idea of a conlang > gathering having to be concerned with LIMITING the number of > attendees... that's rather blowing my mind. I haven't even seen > Avatar yet (I rarely watch movies), but I suppose I ought to check it > out. Huh. > > <3, > la stela selckiku > aka > mungojelly > aka > bret-ram > aka > veret'he > aka > brett > Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 11a. Marking of some nouns determined by properties of others Posted by: "Peter Bleackley" peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 1:44 am ((PDT)) I had an idea for a very odd morphosyntactic allignment yesterday. There are two genders, animate and inanimate. In intransitive sentences, the subject is always unmarked. In transitive sentence, the subject is unmarked if is animate. The object will then be marked as accusative, regardless of its gender. If the subject is inanimate, it will be marked as ergative. The object will then be unmarked, regardless of it's gender. So far, vaguely plausible. Then I had a look at what might happen with ditransitive sentences, and it started to get weird. If the recipient is animate, it will be marked the same way as the object of a monotransitive sentence. In this case, if the theme is inanimate, it will be marked the same way, so that theme and recipent are distinguished by their animacy. However, if the theme is animate, it will be marked as secundative. Inanimate objects, however, are marked as dative. In this case, the theme will be marked as if it were the object of a monotransitive sentence, regardless of its animacy. What do people think of this? Pete Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ 11b. Re: Marking of some nouns determined by properties of others Posted by: "Adam Walker" carra...@gmail.com Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 7:47 am ((PDT)) Um, wow. I'd need an if/then flow chart just to say hi. Cool. Adam On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 1:39 AM, Peter Bleackley < peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk> wrote: > I had an idea for a very odd morphosyntactic allignment yesterday. > > There are two genders, animate and inanimate. > In intransitive sentences, the subject is always unmarked. > In transitive sentence, the subject is unmarked if is animate. The object > will then be marked as accusative, regardless of its gender. > If the subject is inanimate, it will be marked as ergative. The object will > then be unmarked, regardless of it's gender. > > So far, vaguely plausible. Then I had a look at what might happen with > ditransitive sentences, and it started to get weird. > > If the recipient is animate, it will be marked the same way as the object > of a monotransitive sentence. In this case, if the theme is inanimate, it > will be marked the same way, so that theme and recipent are distinguished by > their animacy. However, if the theme is animate, it will be marked as > secundative. > Inanimate objects, however, are marked as dative. In this case, the theme > will be marked as if it were the object of a monotransitive sentence, > regardless of its animacy. > > What do people think of this? > > Pete > Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ 11c. Re: Marking of some nouns determined by properties of others Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 8:28 am ((PDT)) On 9 September 2010 16:43, Adam Walker <carra...@gmail.com> wrote: > Um, wow. I'd need an if/then flow chart just to say hi. Cool. > > Actually, you'd be amazed by the amount of stuff that we just internalise that would blow our minds it we described it in actual rules. Humans are incredibly good at internalising patterns, even very complex ones (to the point we actually often see patterns where there are none. Our brains are so good at that they create lots of false positives :P ). Sometimes, when I see for instance the conjugations systems extant in various Amerind languages, I just can't quite understand how people can actually conjugate those verbs effortlessly! As for the morphosyntactic alignment Peter describes, it is slightly odd, but between the various kinds of active languages and the various treatments of ditransitive verbs in languages, I don't feel it's particularly weird. But I need to draw a graph to really get our the various participants interact ;) . > Adam > > On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 1:39 AM, Peter Bleackley < > peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk> wrote: > > > I had an idea for a very odd morphosyntactic allignment yesterday. > > > > There are two genders, animate and inanimate. > > In intransitive sentences, the subject is always unmarked. > > In transitive sentence, the subject is unmarked if is animate. The object > > will then be marked as accusative, regardless of its gender. > > If the subject is inanimate, it will be marked as ergative. The object > will > > then be unmarked, regardless of it's gender. > > > > So far, vaguely plausible. Then I had a look at what might happen with > > ditransitive sentences, and it started to get weird. > > > > If the recipient is animate, it will be marked the same way as the object > > of a monotransitive sentence. In this case, if the theme is inanimate, it > > will be marked the same way, so that theme and recipent are distinguished > by > > their animacy. However, if the theme is animate, it will be marked as > > secundative. > > Inanimate objects, however, are marked as dative. In this case, the theme > > will be marked as if it were the object of a monotransitive sentence, > > regardless of its animacy. > > > > What do people think of this? > > > > Pete > > > -- Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets. http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/ http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/ Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 12a. Re: Graavgaaln grammar Posted by: "Adam Walker" carra...@gmail.com Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 7:49 am ((PDT)) Same on this one. Three days seemes too long even for email sent with sticky-jelly fingers. Adam On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 11:35 AM, Adam Walker <carra...@gmail.com> wrote: > Here's what I know about the grammar of Graavgaaln: > > Word order is SOV. > > Pronouns and nouns show case. Object, Benefactive and Instrumental are > attested and marked with suffixes. Locative is handled with a postposition. > > Number is marked on nouns. > > Possessor-possessed. Possession is shown with the word <nezh> which comes > between the two persons/objects being related. > > Verbs show number, person and tense and causation. > > Coordination of NPs uses the word <lî> between the terms. Coordination of > clauses uses the word <nezh> both before and after the second clause. > > I need to go back over my few texts and see what other information I can > extract. > > Adam > > Messages in this topic (2) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 13a. Re: Graavgaaln phonology the syllable Posted by: "Adam Walker" carra...@gmail.com Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 7:51 am ((PDT)) Sent this 3 days ago, but haven't seen it arrive, so resending. Adam On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 8:20 AM, Adam Walker <carra...@gmail.com> wrote: > Looking back through old samples of Graavgaaln, I find the following > syllable shapes attested: > > CV > CVC > CVCC > CVCCC > > CCV > CCVC > > CCCVCCC > > I do not find any examples of: > > CCVCC > CCVCCC > > CCCV > CCCVC > CCCVCC > > But that does not mean such typs do not exist, just that I did not find any > examples in the extant corpus. > > I posit that the Graavgaaln syllable is: > > (CC)CV(CCC) > > Open syllables are exremely rare in the material examined. Graavgaaln > seems to have a distinct preference for closed syllables, but codas with CCC > are also rare and those with CC are less numerous than those with simple C. > > Onsets seem to be mostly C and CC with CCC occuring rarely. Zero onset > does not occur in the corpus, but as the alphabet includeds a device for > writing an initial vowel, zero onset cannot be entirely ruled out, though > such words maybe foreign borrowings and syllables of the type V(CCC) may not > occcur in native words. > > Extant words range from one to four syllables. > > Adam > Messages in this topic (2) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 14a. Re: Unnamed Language Phonology Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 8:01 am ((PDT)) On 8 September 2010 17:23, Matthew Turnbull <ave....@gmail.com> wrote: > what does [á´] stand for again, According to the Wikipedia page about the IPA ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet), it's an unofficial symbol indicating an epiglottal trill, as you rightly guessed. > and are these anything like [aÌ¥ÊÍ¡Ì¥] which I > analysed as a voicing pattern in Jorayn. Because it would be nice to see > natlang precedant for a trilled uvular co-articulation with de voicing, > because Jorayn is supposed to be natlangy. Or maybe they are epiglottal > trills, I'll have to investigate later when my throat stops hurting enough > to pronounce them. > How do people with languages with pharyngeal and/or epiglottal sounds speak them when they have a sore throat? Do they just suffer in silence or do they tend to get a speech impediment during that time? -- Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets. http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/ http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/ Messages in this topic (8) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 15a. Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 8:51 am ((PDT)) Words are made up of any number of CV syllables where C is a glottal stop, a single consonant, or any one of a number of permitted consonant clusters (as yet unspecified). The first syllable may have a null consonant, i.e. V only. The first vowel of a word is any vowel other than 'a'. All of the remaining vowels of the word are the vowel 'a'. For example: diva, ropa, upasana, purampada, toskala, osa'atanda ... The accent falls on the non-a syllable. Compound words are easily recognized and parsed since they will have more than one syllable with a non-a vowel. For example: otampaposata can only be otampa + posata since that is the only partition that satisfies the morphology of roots. sikalakoranita -> sikala + kora + nita If a compound joins a vowel to a vowel, e.g. chupa + otaka, a glottal stop is inserted: chupa'otaka. I can't imagine a simpler system than that. Now all I need is the simplest possible grammar to go along with this and I can build the simplest possible conlang. :) --gary Messages in this topic (4) ________________________________________________________________________ 15b. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology Posted by: "Jerry Muelver" jmuel...@gmail.com Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 9:05 am ((PDT)) Gary, I've got one I'm working on, like that. CV, CVCV, CVCVCV, four vowels - a, i, o, u - eight consonants - j, k, l, m, p, s, t, w - about 1400 word vocabulary, plus TrueType font for elegance and handwritten scripting (font looks like script). This can be fun, if I'm not careful.... On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 10:49 AM, Gary Shannon <fizi...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Now all I need is the simplest possible grammar to go along with this > and I can build the simplest possible conlang. :) > > --gary > Messages in this topic (4) ________________________________________________________________________ 15c. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" chronosur...@gmail.com Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 9:10 am ((PDT)) > Now all I need is the simplest possible grammar to go along with this > and I can build the simplest possible conlang. :) By "simplest", do you mean "fewest number of rules", or something like that, or are we fudging that to make allowances for what humans can easily parse? I find there's a significant difference between "logically simplest" and "simplest for a person". -logan. Messages in this topic (4) ________________________________________________________________________ 15d. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology Posted by: "Larry Sulky" larrysu...@gmail.com Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 9:19 am ((PDT)) Sorry, forgot the link: http://larrysulky.webs.com/konya/konya-main.html 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! 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