There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. missing posts
From: Adam Walker
1b. Re: missing posts
From: p...@phillipdriscoll.com
1c. Re: missing posts
From: Lee
1d. Re: missing posts
From: Adam Walker
2a. Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/?
From: Daniel Prohaska
2b. Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/?
From: Daniel Prohaska
2c. Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/?
From: John Vertical
2d. Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/?
From: Lars Finsen
2e. Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/?
From: Alex Fink
3a. Re: Need help with phonetics/phonology at CALS
From: David McCann
4a. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
From: Lee
4b. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
From: Larry Sulky
4c. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
From: John Vertical
4d. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
From: Larry Sulky
4e. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
From: Gary Shannon
4f. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
From: Brett Williams
4g. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
From: John Vertical
4h. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
From: Garth Wallace
4i. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
From: Gary Shannon
4j. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
From: Gary Shannon
4k. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
From: Larry Sulky
4l. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
From: Maxime Papillon
4m. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
From: Eugene Oh
5.1. Re: The 2010 Smiley Award Winner: amman iar
From: M.S. Soderquist
5.2. Re: The 2010 Smiley Award Winner: amman iar
From: Patrick Michael Niedzielski
Messages
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1a. missing posts
Posted by: "Adam Walker" carra...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 9:30 am ((PDT))
Okay, so what's up with my posts not showing up? I've got severl posts from
early this week that have never showed up. I tried resending them half an
hour agoe and still no dice. What's the dealio?
Adam
Messages in this topic (4)
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1b. Re: missing posts
Posted by: "p...@phillipdriscoll.com" p...@phillipdriscoll.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 9:35 am ((PDT))
I received your messages both times. I believe there's a configuration
parameter that says not to send your own postings to yourself. Perhaps
that got set for you?
--Ph. D.
Adam Walker wrote:
> Okay, so what's up with my posts not showing up? I've got severl posts from
> early this week that have never showed up. I tried resending them half an
> hour agoe and still no dice. What's the dealio?
>
> Adam
>
>
Messages in this topic (4)
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1c. Re: missing posts
Posted by: "Lee" waywardwre...@yahoo.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 9:37 am ((PDT))
The listserv now has a thing against your domain, like it does for yahoo.com?
Lee
--- On Thu, 9/9/10, Adam Walker <carra...@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Adam Walker <carra...@gmail.com>
Subject: missing posts
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Date: Thursday, September 9, 2010, 11:28 AM
Okay, so what's up with my posts not showing up? I've got severl posts from
early this week that have never showed up. I tried resending them half an
hour agoe and still no dice. What's the dealio?
Adam
Messages in this topic (4)
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1d. Re: missing posts
Posted by: "Adam Walker" carra...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 9:43 am ((PDT))
Hmm. The post starting this thread showed up, but the others still
haven't. This is too weird. I've been getting other posts I sent, both
before and after the four (I didn't care enough to resend the others) that
have gone AWOL on me, just not these few (and one sent to the Conculture
list). I don't know what to make of this, but I guess that finishes my 5
posts for today.
Adam
On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 9:33 AM, <p...@phillipdriscoll.com> wrote:
> I received your messages both times. I believe there's a configuration
> parameter that says not to send your own postings to yourself. Perhaps
> that got set for you?
>
> --Ph. D.
>
> Adam Walker wrote:
>
> Okay, so what's up with my posts not showing up? I've got severl posts
>> from
>>
> > early this week that have never showed up. I tried resending them half
> an
> > hour agoe and still no dice. What's the dealio?
> >
> > Adam
> >
> >
>
>
>
Messages in this topic (4)
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2a. Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/?
Posted by: "Daniel Prohaska" dan...@ryan-prohaska.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 9:32 am ((PDT))
Very good point!!!
-----Original Message-----
From: David McCann
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 6:06 PM
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Subject: Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/?
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: kʊt > kɤt > kʌt > kət (USA), kat (UK)
foot: fuːt > fʊt
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" [bʊt] and "butter" [bat] as dialect mixture.
But we cannot have a rule that /ʊ/ 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 /ʊ/ 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 /viːld/ "field".
Messages in this topic (8)
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2b. Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/?
Posted by: "Daniel Prohaska" dan...@ryan-prohaska.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 9:33 am ((PDT))
Thanks for this John.
Actually, northern English English didn't do away with /U/, but /V/ never
developed! I have /U/ for all the /V/-words in my native dialect: "other, cut,
mother, much" etc. I also say "book" /bUk/ (homonymous with "buck"), but my
grandmother still said /bu:k/. Unusually I also have /rUm/ for "room".
Dan (north Manchester BTW)
-----Original Message-----
From: John Vertical
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 5:41 PM
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Subject: Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/?
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 (8)
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2c. Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/?
Posted by: "John Vertical" johnverti...@hotmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 9:55 am ((PDT))
On Thu, 9 Sep 2010 18:31:17 +0200, Daniel Prohaska wrote:
>Actually, northern English English didn't do away with /U/, but /V/ never
developed! I have /U/ for all the /V/-words in my native dialect: "other,
cut, mother, much" etc.
I may have gotten the precise dialects, or just the terminology mix'd up.
Isn't "putt" from Scottish English?
On Thu, 9 Sep 2010 17:06:21 +0100, David McCann wrote:
>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" [bʊt] and "butter" [bat] as dialect mixture.
>But we cannot have a rule that /ʊ/ 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 /ʊ/ after a labial as loanwords from the north (
)
I'm really not sure what are you trying to get at here. Are you suggesting
that the neogrammarian theory is somehow unable to account for a sound
change which changes A to B except in environment C? This is clearly false,
we could eg. describe a multi-stage process such as:
1) U > V
2) Near labials, V > U
But I'm not sure why "_except C" is a disallowed condition anyway. I thought
the Neogrammarian theory is "sound change is regular", not "sound change
cannot be reversed" (the latter only holds as a consequence when the change
in question involves a merger), with no particular stance on the mecanisms
of dispersal of changes thruout the speaker base.
John Vertical
Messages in this topic (8)
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2d. Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/?
Posted by: "Lars Finsen" lars.fin...@ortygia.no
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 10:35 am ((PDT))
Den 9. sep. 2010 kl. 18.06 skreiv David McCann:
>
> 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" [bʊt] and "butter" [bat] as dialect
> mixture.
Well, butter and butcher do have widely different routes towards
modern English, no surprise that they sound different. Don't get
confused by the written image.
LEF
Messages in this topic (8)
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2e. Re: How did English <u> get /U/ and /V/?
Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 3:22 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, 9 Sep 2010 12:47:42 -0400, John Vertical <johnverti...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>On Thu, 9 Sep 2010 17:06:21 +0100, David McCann wrote:
>>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" [bUt] and "butter" [bat] as dialect mixture.
>>But we cannot have a rule that /U/ 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 /U/ after a labial as loanwords from the north (
)
>
>I'm really not sure what are you trying to get at here. Are you suggesting
>that the neogrammarian theory is somehow unable to account for a sound
>change which changes A to B except in environment C? This is clearly false,
>we could eg. describe a multi-stage process such as:
>1) U > V
>2) Near labials, V > U
>But I'm not sure why "_except C" is a disallowed condition anyway. I thought
>the Neogrammarian theory is "sound change is regular", not "sound change
>cannot be reversed" (the latter only holds as a consequence when the change
>in question involves a merger), with no particular stance on the mecanisms
>of dispersal of changes thruout the speaker base.
I don't see a sensible way to draw a bright line between
Neogrammarianly-acceptable changes and ones that aren't, anyway; there's a
sorites problem. Changes with a single exception ought to be allowed, okay;
how about two? three? ... a change with an exception for the phonological
shape of every word in which, in reality, it sporadically failed to happen
for whatever chance reason?
In any event, the [U]-retention rule as I have it in my head is that [U] is
retained when following a labial *and preceding [l] or a postalveolar*, or
in any situation following [w] (which is rare, there was a historical *wu
constraint at some point). That's better: "mush" is in, there's not some
exception about /m/; others are out. But it's still not exceptionless, e.g.
"much" (which has other irregularities: the stressed vowel ought to've been
[I] by regular development; and why no <t> in the spelling?).
(I suspect I learned that formulation from Rosenfelder originally,
http://zompist.com/spell.html rule 29a.)
Alex
Messages in this topic (8)
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3a. Re: Need help with phonetics/phonology at CALS
Posted by: "David McCann" da...@polymathy.plus.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 9:38 am ((PDT))
On Wed, 2010-09-08 at 23:24 -0400, Alex Fink wrote:
> 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.
The basic problem is that we are trying to maintain a false distinction
established in the 19th century which has been fossilised by the IPA.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no language where two phonemes
contrast purely as dental versus alveolar; the contrast always depends
on something else, such as laminal versus apical (or ± pharyngealisation
for the Albanian laterals). The fundamental nature of the laminal/apical
contrast is demonstrated in languages like the Dravidian and Australian
ones, where the contrast exists at both dental and post-alveolar
conditions, and the same phonotactic rules apply to both.
There's nothing we can do, because most recorded descriptions follow the
convention. Thus English is described as having "alveolars" when,
according to Ladefoged, about a third of Californians make them dental!
I suspect that even calling them apical would be going too far; my /t d/
are definitely laminals. I'd prefer to use "alveolar" for /s/ and
"post-alveolar" for /š/, but that would create even more confusion, so I
stick to "denti-alveolar" for /s/.
Beware Wikipedia! Its authors do not necessarily know more than you do,
and sometimes know less.
Messages in this topic (13)
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4a. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
Posted by: "Lee" waywardwre...@yahoo.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 9:41 am ((PDT))
I love this part of Verbosity, on your Language Description page:
"Besides, most European languages take more syllables than English too, so
there."
Lee
--- On Thu, 9/9/10, Larry Sulky <larrysu...@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Larry Sulky <larrysu...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Date: Thursday, September 9, 2010, 11:12 AM
Sorry, forgot the link:
http://larrysulky.webs.com/konya/konya-main.html
Messages in this topic (17)
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4b. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
Posted by: "Larry Sulky" larrysu...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 9:49 am ((PDT))
Gary, please see my language Konya, which preceded ilomi. :-)
Messages in this topic (17)
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4c. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
Posted by: "John Vertical" johnverti...@hotmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 10:12 am ((PDT))
Since a word can have only one initial syllable but many non-initial ones,
wouldn't it be a more combinatorially powerful system if there was an
initial-syllable-only segment rather than a non-initial syllable one? That
seems easier to parse, too: the lis'ner only has to be on the watch for one
specific sound, not n-1 of them. This would also allow generalization to
affix markers (even different ones for derivational/grammatical
suffixes/prefixes), for morphological self-segregation.
Also², I'd probably use a consonant rather than a vowel for the job. Perhaps
/ʔ/, which I could then claim has the spelling " " - a space :)
John Vertical
Messages in this topic (17)
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4d. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
Posted by: "Larry Sulky" larrysu...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 10:20 am ((PDT))
On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 1:07 PM, John Vertical <johnverti...@hotmail.com>wrote:
> Also², I'd probably use a consonant rather than a vowel for the job.
> Perhaps
> /ʔ/, which I could then claim has the spelling " " - a space :)
>
> In that case, please see my language ilomi at
http://larrysulky.webs.com/ilomi/ilomi-main.html
Messages in this topic (17)
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4e. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 11:15 am ((PDT))
On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 10:07 AM, John Vertical <johnverti...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Since a word can have only one initial syllable but many non-initial ones,
> wouldn't it be a more combinatorially powerful system if there was an
> initial-syllable-only segment rather than a non-initial syllable one? That
> seems easier to parse, too: the lis'ner only has to be on the watch for one
> specific sound, not n-1 of them.
Yes, you are correct. Combinatorially, there are many more possible
words using a single vowel sound as the distinguishing one, but it
seems to me that it is easier to pick out the one distinct vowel sound
in a monotonous chain of uniform vowels sounds than to pick one
particular vowel sound out of a stream of constantly changing vowel
sounds. It's kind of like looking for a rodent, any kind of rodent, in
the bathtub as opposed to looking for the gerbil in a room full of
rats, mice, squirrels and voles.
Larry: How did I miss Konya? I didn't know about that one. It looks
very interesting.
Logan:
> 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".
I think what I had in mind was the system that requires the shortest
explanation. A system that can be explained in eight words is simpler
than one which takes 14 words to explain.
--gary
Messages in this topic (17)
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4f. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
Posted by: "Brett Williams" mungoje...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 11:48 am ((PDT))
It has to be some sort of trade-off between simplicity and aesthetics.
I can easily make a simpler system: Every word starts with "k"! The
question is what's the simplest system that's tolerable at all.
Here's one I've always thought of: The first syllable in each word is
a high tone, and the rest are a low tone.
<3,
la stela selckiku
aka
mungojelly
aka
bret-ram
aka
veret'he
aka
brett
Messages in this topic (17)
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4g. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
Posted by: "John Vertical" johnverti...@hotmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 12:00 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, 9 Sep 2010 11:11:36 -0700, Gary Shannon wrote:
>On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 10:07 AM, John Vertical <johnverti...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>> Since a word can have only one initial syllable but many non-initial ones,
>> wouldn't it be a more combinatorially powerful system if there was an
>> initial-syllable-only segment rather than a non-initial syllable one? That
>> seems easier to parse, too: the lis'ner only has to be on the watch for one
>> specific sound, not n-1 of them.
>
>Yes, you are correct. Combinatorially, there are many more possible
>words using a single vowel sound as the distinguishing one, but it
>seems to me that it is easier to pick out the one distinct vowel sound
>in a monotonous chain of uniform vowels sounds than to pick one
>particular vowel sound out of a stream of constantly changing vowel
>sounds. It's kind of like looking for a rodent, any kind of rodent, in
>the bathtub as opposed to looking for the gerbil in a room full of
>rats, mice, squirrels and voles.
>--gary
Not quite, it's like looking for a non-mouse rodent in a room full of
rodents, of which most are mice. I don't think it's obviously easier. We'd
need some testing here
Also, I realized the combinatorial point actually depends on how long the
words are on average in the language. If there are many monosyllabic but few
trisyllabic+ words, it then works in the favor of non-initial markers. And
if words are disyllabic on average, it doesn't matter which way it goes.
John Vertical
Messages in this topic (17)
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4h. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
Posted by: "Garth Wallace" gwa...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 12:44 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 8:49 AM, Gary Shannon <fizi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
Just wondering, why do you single out the glottal stop specifically?
If glottal stops exist in the language, surely "a single consonant"
covers it.
Messages in this topic (17)
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4i. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 1:35 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 12:41 PM, Garth Wallace <gwa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 8:49 AM, Gary Shannon <fizi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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.
>
> Just wondering, why do you single out the glottal stop specifically?
> If glottal stops exist in the language, surely "a single consonant"
> covers it.
No particular reason. I guess I just don't think of glottal stops as
being consonants.
--gary
Messages in this topic (17)
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4j. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 1:39 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 11:58 AM, John Vertical <johnverti...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Sep 2010 11:11:36 -0700, Gary Shannon wrote:
>>Yes, you are correct. Combinatorially, there are many more possible
>>words using a single vowel sound as the distinguishing one, but it
>>seems to me that it is easier to pick out the one distinct vowel sound
>>in a monotonous chain of uniform vowels sounds than to pick one
>>particular vowel sound out of a stream of constantly changing vowel
>>sounds. It's kind of like looking for a rodent, any kind of rodent, in
>>the bathtub as opposed to looking for the gerbil in a room full of
>>rats, mice, squirrels and voles.
>
>>--gary
>
> Not quite, it's like looking for a non-mouse rodent in a room full of
> rodents, of which most are mice. I don't think it's obviously easier. We'd
> need some testing here�
>
> Also, I realized the combinatorial point actually depends on how long the
> words are on average in the language. If there are many monosyllabic but few
> trisyllabic+ words, it then works in the favor of non-initial markers. And
> if words are disyllabic on average, it doesn't matter which way it goes.
Good points. I was thinking along the lines of function words being
monosyllables and content words being two or more.
On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 11:45 AM, Brett Williams <mungoje...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It has to be some sort of trade-off between simplicity and aesthetics.
> I can easily make a simpler system: Every word starts with "k"! The
> question is what's the simplest system that's tolerable at all.
> Here's one I've always thought of: The first syllable in each word is
> a high tone, and the rest are a low tone.
I guess I sort of just assumed a certain minimum aesthetic standard
before a system could even be considered worth the bother. Interesting
how unacknowledged assumptions can color our thinking.
The tone idea is interesting, except that personally I don't like
tones. How do you whisper in tones? And if you can't whisper in tones,
how do you talk in class without teacher catching you? ;-)
--gary
Messages in this topic (17)
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4k. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
Posted by: "Larry Sulky" larrysu...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 2:28 pm ((PDT))
As many of you know, I think about this stuff (self-segregating morphology)
all the time. All my languages use one scheme or another in pursuit of this.
You're all free to borrow any ideas from Konya, ilomi, Lume, or Qakwan.
On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Gary Shannon <fizi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Good points. I was thinking along the lines of function words being
> monosyllables and content words being two or more.
>
>
li musa yu koma li pomakranata.
> On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 11:45 AM, Brett Williams <mungoje...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > It has to be some sort of trade-off between simplicity and aesthetics.
> > I can easily make a simpler system: Every word starts with "k"! The
> > question is what's the simplest system that's tolerable at all.
> > Here's one I've always thought of: The first syllable in each word is
> > a high tone, and the rest are a low tone.
>
> I guess I sort of just assumed a certain minimum aesthetic standard
> before a system could even be considered worth the bother. Interesting
> how unacknowledged assumptions can color our thinking.
>
> The tone idea is interesting, except that personally I don't like
> tones. How do you whisper in tones? And if you can't whisper in tones,
> how do you talk in class without teacher catching you? ;-)
>
>
It's also hard to distinguish tone or stress on a single-syllable word.
---larry
Messages in this topic (17)
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4l. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
Posted by: "Maxime Papillon" salut_vous_au...@hotmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 3:09 pm ((PDT))
I can think of a number of self-segregating morphology that I find simpler, but
then how can we tell except with "it feels simpler to me"? We could ask who can
write the shortest segregating computer program for his morphology, but then
we're talking about computers, not about human speakers.
The word "simple" doesn't seem adapted to the field of linguistic.
Maxime
> Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2010 08:49:18 -0700
> From: fizi...@gmail.com
> Subject: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
>
> 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 (17)
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4m. Re: Possibly the simplest possible self-segregating morphology
Posted by: "Eugene Oh" un.do...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 3:24 pm ((PDT))
Children whisper in class fine enough without distinguishing stress. Besides
Chinese Thai and Vietnamese speakers whisper too. It is actually possible to
distinguish if you make the effort. In fact John's suggestion is just like, I
don't know - Finnish? Words or compound members have initial stress IIRC.
Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Sep 2010, at 22:25, Larry Sulky <larrysu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> As many of you know, I think about this stuff (self-segregating morphology)
> all the time. All my languages use one scheme or another in pursuit of this.
> You're all free to borrow any ideas from Konya, ilomi, Lume, or Qakwan.
>
> On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Gary Shannon <fizi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Good points. I was thinking along the lines of function words being
>> monosyllables and content words being two or more.
>>
>>
> li musa yu koma li pomakranata.
>
>
>> On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 11:45 AM, Brett Williams <mungoje...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> It has to be some sort of trade-off between simplicity and aesthetics.
>>> I can easily make a simpler system: Every word starts with "k"! The
>>> question is what's the simplest system that's tolerable at all.
>>> Here's one I've always thought of: The first syllable in each word is
>>> a high tone, and the rest are a low tone.
>>
>> I guess I sort of just assumed a certain minimum aesthetic standard
>> before a system could even be considered worth the bother. Interesting
>> how unacknowledged assumptions can color our thinking.
>>
>> The tone idea is interesting, except that personally I don't like
>> tones. How do you whisper in tones? And if you can't whisper in tones,
>> how do you talk in class without teacher catching you? ;-)
>>
>>
> It's also hard to distinguish tone or stress on a single-syllable word.
>
> ---larry
Messages in this topic (17)
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________________________________________________________________________
5.1. Re: The 2010 Smiley Award Winner: amman iar
Posted by: "M.S. Soderquist" gloriouswaf...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 10:00 am ((PDT))
>> 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).
>
> TTBOMK this is Mia Soderquist's doing (I've CCed her). I know she made
> the Twibe (*wince*), but I don't know re identi.ca. (I only very
> sporadically use Twitter.)
>
>
I apologize for just getting around to this, but I don't know anything about
identi.ca either. I am sorry I can't be more help with that.
M.
Messages in this topic (44)
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5.2. Re: The 2010 Smiley Award Winner: amman iar
Posted by: "Patrick Michael Niedzielski" patrickniedziel...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Sep 9, 2010 10:34 am ((PDT))
On ĵaŭ, 2010-09-09 at 12:45 -0400, M.S. Soderquist wrote:
> I apologize for just getting around to this, but I don't know anything about
> identi.ca either. I am sorry I can't be more help with that.
>
> M.
I'm doing my best to revive it. At least it has more people than the
harmonica group. But more of my posts tend to relate to that than to
the conlangs group.
Cheers,
Patrick
--
Humm and Strumm <http://hummstrumm.blogspot.com/>, a Free Software 3D
adventure game for both Windows and *NIX.
freeSoftwareHacker(); <http://freesoftwarehacker.blogspot.com/>, a blog
about Free Software, music, and law.
Messages in this topic (44)
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