There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Mood and author opinion
From: taliesin the storyteller
2a. Re: Forums for prehistoric linguistics of Europe?
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
2b. Re: Forums for prehistoric linguistics of Europe?
From: Padraic Brown
3a. Something for we to discuss!
From: Leonardo Castro
3b. Re: Something for we to discuss!
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
3c. Re: Something for we to discuss!
From: Tony Harris
3d. Re: Something for we to discuss!
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
3e. Re: Something for we to discuss!
From: Anaïs Ahmed
3f. Re: Something for we to discuss!
From: Aodhán Aannestad
3g. Re: Something for we to discuss!
From: Leonardo Castro
3h. Re: Something for we to discuss!
From: Eric Christopherson
3i. Re: Something for we to discuss!
From: H. S. Teoh
3j. Re: Something for we to discuss!
From: Jyri Lehtinen
3k. Re: Something for we to discuss!
From: Tony Harris
3l. Re: Something for we to discuss!
From: Eric Christopherson
Messages
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1a. Re: Mood and author opinion
Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" taliesin-conl...@nvg.org
Date: Fri Jul 5, 2013 8:53 am ((PDT))
On 07/04/2013 05:19 PM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
> On 4 July 2013 16:59, George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Yeah, Choose Your Own Adventure books are the only genre I know that
>> regularly uses second person narration. When other genres use it, it's
>> usually as a gimmick in some small section.
>
> Zompist's Mark Rosenfelder's _Against Peace and Freedom_ (
> http://www.zompist.com/apaf.html) is written entirely in the 2nd person,
> and it's surprisingly readable and entertaining.
Charles Stross has (so far) written two books in the same setting that
are entirely in 2nd person, "Halting State" and "Rule 34". IIRC it's not
*the same* second person throughout the books though! The only character
that is the same in both books is a police detective.
t.
Messages in this topic (16)
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2a. Re: Forums for prehistoric linguistics of Europe?
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" joerg_rhieme...@web.de
Date: Fri Jul 5, 2013 10:00 am ((PDT))
Hallo conlangers!
On Friday 05 July 2013 08:55:27 R A Brown wrote:
> On 05/07/2013 00:49, Padraic Brown wrote:
> [snip]
>
> > Interesting, but quite possibly crackpotty:
> >
> > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Polat_Kaya/
>
> Polat Kaya, eh? Definitely crackpotty then.
And most of the others Padraic suggested are also unhelpful,
for various reasons. Substratumlanguages would in theory be
exactly the right thing (and I *am* there), but in practice,
nobody posts there (and probably, nobody reads it). Cybalist
is dedicated to IE studies, but it is de facto a Paleolithic
Continuity mailing list, which is the reason why I have left it.
The others are either not at all about European linguistic
prehistory, or crackpotty, or both.
I have been watching the Aegeanet archive lately, but apart
from the list being limited to one particular region (and not
even the ones where my interest is strongest, viz. Central
Europe and the British Isles), it mostly carries announcements
of conferences and similar stuff.
> He's the guy who claims the script on the Lemnos stele is
> a western Greek alphabet of the 6th century BC, but a script
> derived from 'runic' script of the Turkic Orhun and Yeniset
> inscriptions and other similar central Asian inscriptions.
> The language, of course, is not an Etruscan related one, as
> most think, but Turkic!
> http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Eteocretan/LemnianTrans.html#Kaya
Funny.
> > Bet you didn't know that the ancient city of Troy is
> > actually the "Home of the Turks"! ;)))
>
> ... of course, and the Pelasgians were Turks. :-D
Turkish nationalism gone loopy.
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (7)
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2b. Re: Forums for prehistoric linguistics of Europe?
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Fri Jul 5, 2013 11:39 am ((PDT))
> From: Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhieme...@web.de>
>
> And most of the others Padraic suggested are also unhelpful,
> for various reasons.
Terribly sorry to hear that! The ones I picked were the *least* loopy ones
I could find! All the rest were either neo-paganette reconstructionists,
satanists, neo-nazis or various west Asian cultural groups (Pashto, Iranian,
Afghan, etc).
Hopefully someone can point you in a better direction!
>> > Bet you didn't know that the ancient city of Troy is
>> > actually the "Home of the Turks"! ;)))
>>
>> ... of course, and the Pelasgians were Turks. :-D
>
> Turkish nationalism gone loopy.
Oh, the hilarity!
Padraic
Messages in this topic (7)
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3a. Something for we to discuss!
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Jul 5, 2013 12:09 pm ((PDT))
In expressions like "for me to do", do you use "me" or "I" in your
conlangs? (If it distinguish them.)
In natlangs, is there a general tendency towards using a specific-case
pronoun? In pt-BR, the formal rule is using the nominative ("caso
reto", actually), that is, "for I to do" ("para eu fazer"), but people
on the streets apparently prefer "for me to do" ("para mim fazer"),
what is considered a grave mistake by grammaticians.
Até mais!
Leonardo
Messages in this topic (12)
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3b. Re: Something for we to discuss!
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Jul 5, 2013 12:29 pm ((PDT))
On 5 July 2013 21:09, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In expressions like "for me to do", do you use "me" or "I" in your
> conlangs? (If it distinguish them.)
>
>
Actually, there is no reason for a conlang to even have the "for me to do"
in the first place. After all, not all natlangs do! Modern Greek, for
instance, lacks the infinitive, so it uses finite subclauses to translate
them, as in: κάÏι να κάνÏ: "something for me to do" (literally:
"something
so that I do"), κάÏι να κάνειÏ: "something for you to do"
(literally:
"something so that you do"). In that case, your question makes no sense.
There's no "me" nor "I" nor "you" in those structures, only a conjugated
finite verb.
My own Moten uses relative subclauses for those, AFAIK. I'm not sure what
Basque does, will have to check my book...
> In natlangs, is there a general tendency towards using a specific-case
> pronoun? In pt-BR, the formal rule is using the nominative ("caso
> reto", actually), that is, "for I to do" ("para eu fazer"), but people
> on the streets apparently prefer "for me to do" ("para mim fazer"),
> what is considered a grave mistake by grammaticians.
>
>
Interesting. French doesn't have such constructions. It can use the
infinitive in an expression like "quelque chose à faire": "something to
do", but as soon as you want to indicate the subject of the doing you need
to use a relative subclause: "quelque chose qu'il faut que tu fasses":
"something that you have to do", i.e. "something for you to do". That said,
I believe Portuguese goes out of its way to use infinitives where other
Romance languages use finite forms instead, so that could simply be one
example of that trend :) .
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (12)
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3c. Re: Something for we to discuss!
Posted by: "Tony Harris" t...@alurhsa.org
Date: Fri Jul 5, 2013 1:09 pm ((PDT))
I think I would do this in Alurhsa as "that" (conj.) + imperative.
So for example "He has something for me to do" would be "Xô ñólyësán el
kelyáy" (he-has something[ACC] that I-do[IMPER]).
This would be sort of like saying it this way in French: Il a quelque
chose que je fasse, or in Spanish: Tiene algo que yo haga. I would give
the Portuguese, but I'm afraid my limited Portuguese isn't that good.
Maybe "Tem alguma cosa que eu faza"? (I'd like to know if that's
anywhere near even close...)
On 07/05/2013 03:09 PM, Leonardo Castro wrote:
> In expressions like "for me to do", do you use "me" or "I" in your
> conlangs? (If it distinguish them.)
>
> In natlangs, is there a general tendency towards using a specific-case
> pronoun? In pt-BR, the formal rule is using the nominative ("caso
> reto", actually), that is, "for I to do" ("para eu fazer"), but people
> on the streets apparently prefer "for me to do" ("para mim fazer"),
> what is considered a grave mistake by grammaticians.
>
> Até mais!
>
> Leonardo
Messages in this topic (12)
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3d. Re: Something for we to discuss!
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Jul 5, 2013 1:25 pm ((PDT))
On 5 July 2013 22:08, Tony Harris <t...@alurhsa.org> wrote:
> I think I would do this in Alurhsa as "that" (conj.) + imperative.
>
> So for example "He has something for me to do" would be "Xô Åólyësán el
> kelyáy" (he-has something[ACC] that I-do[IMPER]).
>
>
That's weird. It's weird enough to have an imperative for the first person
(but then maybe it's really an imperative-hortative), but an imperative in
a subclause?! Usually the imperative mood is restricted to main clauses. In
subclauses, it gets replaced with another mood, often something like a
subjunctive.
> This would be sort of like saying it this way in French: Il a quelque
> chose que je fasse,
That's not correct French. The correct expression is "il y a quelque chose
qu'il faut que je fasse" or "il y a quelque chose que je dois faire" (both
mean: "there's something that I have to do"). At the same time, such
expressions are a bit stilted. A better translation would be "j'ai quelque
chose à faire": "I have something to do". Much more flowing and more native
than all those heavy constructions with subclauses.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (12)
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3e. Re: Something for we to discuss!
Posted by: "Anaïs Ahmed" aeetlrcre...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Jul 5, 2013 2:18 pm ((PDT))
Là à že tends to use participial constructions, as it does for relative
clauses:
t'úax îx-tsup-Ää
sth do-fut.pass.part-my.inalienable
"something for me to do"
Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> kirjoitti 5.7.2013 kello 14.09:
> In expressions like "for me to do", do you use "me" or "I" in your
> conlangs? (If it distinguish them.)
>
> In natlangs, is there a general tendency towards using a specific-case
> pronoun? In pt-BR, the formal rule is using the nominative ("caso
> reto", actually), that is, "for I to do" ("para eu fazer"), but people
> on the streets apparently prefer "for me to do" ("para mim fazer"),
> what is considered a grave mistake by grammaticians.
>
> Até mais!
>
> Leonardo
Messages in this topic (12)
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3f. Re: Something for we to discuss!
Posted by: "Aodhán Aannestad" tolkien_fr...@aannestad.com
Date: Fri Jul 5, 2013 2:31 pm ((PDT))
On 7æ5æ¥ã»é 16æ18å, Anaïs Ahmed wrote:
> Là à že tends to use participial constructions, as it does for relative
> clauses:
>
> t'úax îx-tsup-Ää
> sth do-fut.pass.part-my.inalienable
> "something for me to do"
agendum meum? :P
My unnamed protolang typically marks subjects of nominalised phrases
with BEN:
ne-twa da-mul-ti
1-BEN do-NECESS-NOM
'[something] for me to do'
(I imagine originally it would have been a noun-BEN verb-NOM-BEN kind of
thing, '[something] for the noun for verbing' (since purpose is done as
verb-NOM-BEN), with the second BEN subsequently dropped.)
>
>
> Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> kirjoitti 5.7.2013 kello 14.09:
>
>> In expressions like "for me to do", do you use "me" or "I" in your
>> conlangs? (If it distinguish them.)
>>
>> In natlangs, is there a general tendency towards using a specific-case
>> pronoun? In pt-BR, the formal rule is using the nominative ("caso
>> reto", actually), that is, "for I to do" ("para eu fazer"), but people
>> on the streets apparently prefer "for me to do" ("para mim fazer"),
>> what is considered a grave mistake by grammaticians.
>>
>> Até mais!
>>
>> Leonardo
Messages in this topic (12)
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3g. Re: Something for we to discuss!
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Jul 5, 2013 3:02 pm ((PDT))
2013/7/5 Tony Harris <t...@alurhsa.org>:
> I think I would do this in Alurhsa as "that" (conj.) + imperative.
>
> So for example "He has something for me to do" would be "Xô Åólyësán el
> kelyáy" (he-has something[ACC] that I-do[IMPER]).
>
> This would be sort of like saying it this way in French: Il a quelque chose
> que je fasse, or in Spanish: Tiene algo que yo haga. I would give the
> Portuguese, but I'm afraid my limited Portuguese isn't that good. Maybe
> "Tem alguma cosa que eu faza"? (I'd like to know if that's anywhere near
> even close...)
"Tem alguma coisa que eu faça" sounds like "There is something that
I'm able to do". Actually, it would be more common as a question "Tem
alguma coisa que eu faça?" (Is there something that I ('m able to)
do?) or, almost the same, "Tem alguma coisa que eu possa faça?"
If you want to make clear that you have an obligation, it would
rather be "Tem uma coisa que eu devo fazer." (indicative) or "Tem
alguma coisa que eu deva fazer?" (subjunctive for interrogative).
Using "alguma" instead of "uma" gives an idead of uncertainty (as if
you didn't remember what you should do) or question. It's maybe more
like English "any" than "some".
The sentence "I have something for you to do" would be more naturally
said as "Eu tenho uma coisa para você fazer" (using infinitive instead
of sujunctive).
As Christophe said, Portuguese infinitive are somewhat peculiar and
they even are conjugated. There are different infinitive forms for
some persons, although they are only optionally conjugated in most
(all?) case.
>
>
>
> On 07/05/2013 03:09 PM, Leonardo Castro wrote:
>>
>> In expressions like "for me to do", do you use "me" or "I" in your
>> conlangs? (If it distinguish them.)
>>
>> In natlangs, is there a general tendency towards using a specific-case
>> pronoun? In pt-BR, the formal rule is using the nominative ("caso
>> reto", actually), that is, "for I to do" ("para eu fazer"), but people
>> on the streets apparently prefer "for me to do" ("para mim fazer"),
>> what is considered a grave mistake by grammaticians.
>>
>> Até mais!
>>
>> Leonardo
Messages in this topic (12)
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3h. Re: Something for we to discuss!
Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" ra...@charter.net
Date: Fri Jul 5, 2013 3:07 pm ((PDT))
On Jul 5, 2013, at 3:25 PM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On 5 July 2013 22:08, Tony Harris <t...@alurhsa.org> wrote:
>
>> I think I would do this in Alurhsa as "that" (conj.) + imperative.
>>
>> So for example "He has something for me to do" would be "Xô Åólyësán el
>> kelyáy" (he-has something[ACC] that I-do[IMPER]).
>>
>>
> That's weird. It's weird enough to have an imperative for the first person
> (but then maybe it's really an imperative-hortative), but an imperative in
> a subclause?! Usually the imperative mood is restricted to main clauses. In
> subclauses, it gets replaced with another mood, often something like a
> subjunctive.
I've been toying with ideas which would allow some as-yet-undeveloped conlang
of mine to treat commands as true/false assertions. I'm not sure yet if they
would use a specific mood or not. I have been collecting bits and pieces of
this sort of thing in natlangs; you can almost do it in English by saying
something like "I wasn't supposed to call you!" or the like, although of course
it's not exactly the same; and the aforementioned Latin gerunds like _agendum_
can be used in indicative phrases (but probably with a modified semantics).
Messages in this topic (12)
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3i. Re: Something for we to discuss!
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Fri Jul 5, 2013 3:34 pm ((PDT))
On Fri, Jul 05, 2013 at 09:28:59PM +0200, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
> On 5 July 2013 21:09, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In expressions like "for me to do", do you use "me" or "I" in your
> > conlangs? (If it distinguish them.)
> >
> Actually, there is no reason for a conlang to even have the "for me to
> do" in the first place. After all, not all natlangs do! Modern Greek,
> for instance, lacks the infinitive, so it uses finite subclauses to
> translate them, as in: κάÏι να κάνÏ: "something for me to do"
> (literally: "something so that I do"), κάÏι να κάνειÏ: "something
> for
> you to do" (literally: "something so that you do"). In that case, your
> question makes no sense. There's no "me" nor "I" nor "you" in those
> structures, only a conjugated finite verb.
In Tatari Faran, there's no direct analogue of "for me to do" or "he has
something for me to do". Instead, one would say "I must do X" or "he
wants me to do X":
huu ka kakai eka jihai no ahai.
1SG ORG:MASC do must something RCP:NEUT FIN
I must do something.
tara' ka uenai ahuu nijihai kakai'i ia.
tara' ka uenai a-huu ni-jihai kakai-i ia.
3SG ORG:MASC want SUBORD_ORG-1SG SUBORD_RCP-something to-INF FIN
He wants me to do something.
But as I understand it, your question isn't so much about how to express
obligation or imperatives, but about the use of the nominative vs. the
accusative in this context. This is interesting, since in English, we
tend to say "it is me" even though the grammatical prescription is to
say "it is I". Apparently, that rule has been eroding, and now "it is
me" is starting to become the new rule. But English isn't the only
language where this switch is happening; in colloquial Russian, for
example, phrases like "Am I visible?" are rendered as with the 1st
person pronoun in the *accusative* rather than the nominative:
ÐÐµÐ½Ñ Ð²Ð¸Ð´Ð½Ð¾?
1SG.ACC visible.PRED
Am I visible?
This also happens in phrases like "He's not here", which literally comes
out to be "Him's not here":
Ðго неÑ.
1SG.ACC not
He's not [here/present/etc.].
So at least, we have two quite-distant (though still related) languages
exhibit a similar phenomenon. I've no idea what motivates it, though.
Maybe the more historically-educated among us can enlighten. ;-)
T
--
MACINTOSH: Most Applications Crash, If Not, The Operating System Hangs
Messages in this topic (12)
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3j. Re: Something for we to discuss!
Posted by: "Jyri Lehtinen" lehtinen.j...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Jul 5, 2013 3:42 pm ((PDT))
2013/7/5 Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com>
> In expressions like "for me to do", do you use "me" or "I" in your
> conlangs? (If it distinguish them.)
Besides the various possible ways to build phrases like this, if you are
indicating the addressee here with an adpositional phrase, you need to take
also the used adposition into consideration. In the case of English you
aren't really interested here in "me" but in "for me". Any case forms taken
by the nouns or pronouns in the phrase depend then on the possible case
governing rules the language has for its adpositions and you may certainly
have strange things happening there. How general is the shift you described
for the pronoun case used with prepositions in pt-BR?
It's naturally also possible to use a case inflected noun phrase in the
place of an adpositional phrase but this is not really different from
expressing the grammatical relation with an independent adposition. In
building a corresponding construction in Finnish you would use the allative
case for the addressee NP/pronoun
(Minu-lla on) sinu-lle teh-tävä-ä.
(1SG-ADESSIVE is.SG3) SG2-ALLATIVE do-PRES.PASS.PARTICIPLE-PARTITIVE
"(I have) something for you to do."
The Finnic exterior local cases (adessive, allative, ablative) are used
widely for some very grammatical functions (such as in indicating
possession) and the allative has here a dative function similar to the
English "for" above. The verb is nominalised with the present passive
participle and behaves just as a regular noun, as can be seen from the
example below with an actual noun
(Minu-lla on) sinu-lle kirja.
(1SG-ADESSIVE is.SG3) SG2-ALLATIVE book
"(I have) a book for you."
-Jyri
Messages in this topic (12)
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3k. Re: Something for we to discuss!
Posted by: "Tony Harris" t...@alurhsa.org
Date: Fri Jul 5, 2013 3:45 pm ((PDT))
Weird, maybe. But it "feels" correct In Alurhsa, and after all that's all that
matters (at least to me).
Yes, I know it's not correct French, or Spanish either. It was just an example,
as it's easier to see as an example in a Romance language than in English.
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 5 July 2013 22:08, Tony Harris <t...@alurhsa.org> wrote:
>
>> I think I would do this in Alurhsa as "that" (conj.) + imperative.
>>
>> So for example "He has something for me to do" would be "Xô Åólyësán
>el
>> kelyáy" (he-has something[ACC] that I-do[IMPER]).
>>
>>
>That's weird. It's weird enough to have an imperative for the first
>person
>(but then maybe it's really an imperative-hortative), but an imperative
>in
>a subclause?! Usually the imperative mood is restricted to main
>clauses. In
>subclauses, it gets replaced with another mood, often something like a
>subjunctive.
>
>
>> This would be sort of like saying it this way in French: Il a quelque
>> chose que je fasse,
>
>
>That's not correct French. The correct expression is "il y a quelque
>chose
>qu'il faut que je fasse" or "il y a quelque chose que je dois faire"
>(both
>mean: "there's something that I have to do"). At the same time, such
>expressions are a bit stilted. A better translation would be "j'ai
>quelque
>chose à faire": "I have something to do". Much more flowing and more
>native
>than all those heavy constructions with subclauses.
>--
>Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
>http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
>http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (12)
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3l. Re: Something for we to discuss!
Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" ra...@charter.net
Date: Fri Jul 5, 2013 4:45 pm ((PDT))
On Jul 5, 2013, at 2:09 PM, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In expressions like "for me to do", do you use "me" or "I" in your
> conlangs? (If it distinguish them.)
>
> In natlangs, is there a general tendency towards using a specific-case
> pronoun? In pt-BR, the formal rule is using the nominative ("caso
> reto", actually), that is, "for I to do" ("para eu fazer"), but people
> on the streets apparently prefer "for me to do" ("para mim fazer"),
> what is considered a grave mistake by grammaticians.
Is that _fazer_ the 1sg-inflected one, or a bare infinitive? I.e. Would you say
_para nos fazermos_?
Messages in this topic (12)
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