There are 21 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: "Knock it off" or "Leave off"
From: ROGER MILLS
1b. Re: "Knock it off" or "Leave off"
From: Matthew
1c. Re: "Knock it off" or "Leave off"
From: Mark J. Reed
1d. Re: "Knock it off" or "Leave off"
From: Jim Henry
2a. Double minimal pairs
From: Herman Miller
2b. Re: Double minimal pairs
From: David J. Peterson
2c. Re: Double minimal pairs
From: J R
2d. Re: Double minimal pairs
From: Mark J. Reed
3a. Re: Hebrew waw consecutive
From: J R
4a. Redundancy + Ambiguity = What? (+ another question)
From: Veoler
4b. Re: Redundancy + Ambiguity = What? (+ another question)
From: Jim Henry
5a. Re: Invented Languages receives its ISSN
From: Jim Henry
5b. Re: Invented Languages receives its ISSN
From: Lars Finsen
5c. Re: Invented Languages receives its ISSN
From: Jim Henry
6a. Fourth Persons
From: Eldin Raigmore
6b. Re: Fourth Persons
From: Aidan Grey
7a. Reflexive & Reciprocal Marked on the Verb
From: Eldin Raigmore
7b. Re: Reflexive & Reciprocal Marked on the Ver
From: Philip Newton
7c. Re: Reflexive & Reciprocal Marked on the Verb
From: Michael Poxon
7d. Re: Reflexive & Reciprocal Marked on the Verb
From: Aidan Grey
8. Consecutives like Hebrew's "waw-consecutives" in your 'langs
From: Eldin Raigmore
Messages
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1a. Re: "Knock it off" or "Leave off"
Posted by: "ROGER MILLS" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2008 1:51 pm ((PDT))
Scotto Hlad wrote:
>One of my cats, Daria, (the only one not spayed because Iâve run out of
>money) is in oestrus. If you never been around a cat in this condition
>consider yourself lucky.
I had an unspayed female for a while; the first time she went into oestrus I
kept her in, but it drove me crazy... I was talking on the phone one day
with a friend in NYC, she yowled and he asked, Roger, is there a baby in
your house? (knowing full well that was an utter impossibility). The 2nd
and 3rd times, she got out, and produced two beautiful litters; then she got
lost :-(((((
>
>Anyway, I have found myslef just looking at her and saying, âGive it a
>restâ¦â or âKnock it offâ¦â or âLeave off.â
A losing battle, no?
I've read that professional breeders stop an unwanted oestrus by stimulating
the genital area with a glass rod or similar small object. Never tried
that.......
There was a TV show about a tiger park/sanctuary (in Australia I think,
"Tiger Island"?) where the tigers are raised from infancy by the keepers and
seemed halfway tame. They were walked around on leashes amongst the
visitors! But if they started to play around too vigorously, the magic
words were "Leave it!"
>Iâd like to know how to convey this message to my cat in your conlangs
>and your L1, including regional type things.
I'm surprised there's nothing at the moment in Kash, but using the simple
negative imperative particle "yanda!" 'don't' would come close. One might
also say yándati (+2nd pers.), yándapo ('just...') or maybe stronger
yándaka, adding the imperative suffix.
Messages in this topic (6)
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1b. Re: "Knock it off" or "Leave off"
Posted by: "Matthew" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2008 7:28 pm ((PDT))
Scotto Hlad wrote:
> Anyway, I have found myslef just looking at her and saying, âGive it a
> restâ¦â or âKnock it offâ¦â or âLeave off.â It has me wondering
> what a
> Pilovese person would say to the whole affair. Even in French, Iâm not
> sure what one would say beyond, âArrêtâ or âAssezâ as neither of
> them
> can convey the tone of being wearied or annoyed with the situation.
>
> Iâd like to know how to convey this message to my cat in your conlangs
> and your L1, including regional type things.
I might say "quit it!" in English
I might say "laisse la!" en français
In Jorayn I would most likely say /
/maro'-ovo'nov-ta-omomo je'niiath-o!
end.of-that.action-2SG-PRS.IMP female.cat-VOC
"stop that, queen!" /
/
Messages in this topic (6)
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1c. Re: "Knock it off" or "Leave off"
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 5:22 am ((PDT))
My L1 default is probably "Cut it out!" Or simply "Stop that!" with
appropriately exasperated tone ("exasperated" is, of course, Pinyin
tone 6. I don't know the CXS. ;-))
Only literal takes on "stop it" in my conlangs so far.
On 9/1/08, Matthew <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Scotto Hlad wrote:
>> Anyway, I have found myslef just looking at her and saying, "Give it a
>> restâ¦" or "Knock it offâ¦" or "Leave off." It has me wondering what a
>> Pilovese person would say to the whole affair. Even in French, I'm not
>> sure what one would say beyond, "Arrêt" or "Assez" as neither of them
>> can convey the tone of being wearied or annoyed with the situation.
>>
>> I'd like to know how to convey this message to my cat in your conlangs
>> and your L1, including regional type things.
> I might say "quit it!" in English
> I might say "laisse la!" en français
> In Jorayn I would most likely say /
> /maro'-ovo'nov-ta-omomo je'niiath-o!
> end.of-that.action-2SG-PRS.IMP female.cat-VOC
> "stop that, queen!" /
> /
>
--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (6)
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1d. Re: "Knock it off" or "Leave off"
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 10:20 am ((PDT))
On Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 12:29 AM, Scotto Hlad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Anyway, I have found myslef just looking at her and saying, "Give it a
> restâ¦" or "Knock it offâ¦" or "Leave off." It has me wondering what a
> Pilovese person
> I'd like to know how to convey this message to my cant in your conlangs and
> your L1, including regional type things.
gzb:
{!blâl-pôm Äyl-Å¥-zô mwe.}
frustration-ATD interrupt-2-V.ACT IMP
{blâl-pôm} is an attitudinal, thus sentence-scope, adverb derived
from the mindstate root {blâl} with the suffix for evidential /
attitudinal / validational adverbs.
In Esperanto, probably:
Fermu la faÅkon!
(Shut your trap!)
"faÅko" is a word for "mouth" used with large animals, esp.
predators; roughly English "maw".
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
Messages in this topic (6)
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2a. Double minimal pairs
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2008 7:30 pm ((PDT))
I found an interesting coincidence as I was working on the Tirelat
vocabulary: a pair of words that's a minimal pair in both English and
Tirelat.
żuki ['dzuki] "drain" (n.)
žuki ['Zuki] "train" (i.e. railroad train)
How likely is this in unrelated languages? Is it possible that when I
went to come up with a word for "drain" that the older word for "train"
came to mind? Or is it just one of those coincidences that's likely to
come up with a large enough vocabulary?
Does anyone have examples of minimal pairs like this from their own
languages (which translate to minimal pairs in an unrelated language)?
Now I'll have to see if I've got any other examples of this.
Messages in this topic (4)
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2b. Re: Double minimal pairs
Posted by: "David J. Peterson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2008 10:37 pm ((PDT))
Herman Miller:
<<
Does anyone have examples of minimal pairs like this from their own
languages (which translate to minimal pairs in an unrelated
language)? Now I'll have to see if I've got any other examples of this.
>>
I don't know of any from any of my languages off-hand--I'll
have to look--but a fascinating one that Nabokov came up
with for his fictional language Zemblan goes as follows:
korona = crown
korova = crow
borova = cow
Not quite the same phenomena, but interesting, nevertheless
(and something that only works in English. I wonder what
happens when the book _Pale Fire_ is translated into other
languages...).
-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
Messages in this topic (4)
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2c. Re: Double minimal pairs
Posted by: "J R" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2008 11:03 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 5:29 AM, Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I found an interesting coincidence as I was working on the Tirelat
> vocabulary: a pair of words that's a minimal pair in both English and
> Tirelat.
>
> ¿uki ['dzuki] "drain" (n.)
> ¾uki ['Zuki] "train" (i.e. railroad train)
>
> How likely is this in unrelated languages? Is it possible that when I went
> to come up with a word for "drain" that the older word for "train" came to
> mind? Or is it just one of those coincidences that's likely to come up with
> a large enough vocabulary?
Don't know about the mathematical probabilities, but I imagine it's very
possible that the older word came to mind. I've caught myself on a number of
occasions recreating a word that I had forgotten about, with the same or
nearly the same form. And sometimes, related words "accidentally" will have
similar forms. It may be because I remember some older words subconsciously,
or perhaps whatever associations made me choose the original form are still
active.
> Does anyone have examples of minimal pairs like this from their own
> languages (which translate to minimal pairs in an unrelated language)? Now
> I'll have to see if I've got any other examples of this.
>
Josh Roth
Messages in this topic (4)
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2d. Re: Double minimal pairs
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 5:29 am ((PDT))
"Don't let this happen to you. Order your Phonomatic(TM) Random
Syllable Generator today, and keep your posteriori out of your a
priori languages."
On 9/2/08, J R <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 5:29 AM, Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> I found an interesting coincidence as I was working on the Tirelat
>> vocabulary: a pair of words that's a minimal pair in both English and
>> Tirelat.
>>
>> żuki ['dzuki] "drain" (n.)
>> žuki ['Zuki] "train" (i.e. railroad train)
>>
>> How likely is this in unrelated languages? Is it possible that when I went
>> to come up with a word for "drain" that the older word for "train" came to
>> mind? Or is it just one of those coincidences that's likely to come up
>> with
>> a large enough vocabulary?
>
>
> Don't know about the mathematical probabilities, but I imagine it's very
> possible that the older word came to mind. I've caught myself on a number of
> occasions recreating a word that I had forgotten about, with the same or
> nearly the same form. And sometimes, related words "accidentally" will have
> similar forms. It may be because I remember some older words subconsciously,
> or perhaps whatever associations made me choose the original form are still
> active.
>
>
>> Does anyone have examples of minimal pairs like this from their own
>> languages (which translate to minimal pairs in an unrelated language)? Now
>> I'll have to see if I've got any other examples of this.
>>
>
> Josh Roth
>
--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (4)
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3a. Re: Hebrew waw consecutive
Posted by: "J R" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 3:23 am ((PDT))
On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 2:49 AM, Veoler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> J R wrote:
> > Veolar, I'm not sure what the alternative is to "believing in"
> > waw-conversive. If you want to say it always means 'and', and the suffix
> > conjugation is always past/perfect, and the prefix conjugation always
> > non-past/imperfect, then tense/aspect would be switching all over the
> place
> > and nothing would make much sense (and the Bible is hard enough to
> > understand already...).
>
> Yes. But if they are purely aspectual and not tenses, is it still
> confusing?
> I thought it was a common view that Biblical Hebrew distinguished
> perfective
> and imperfective (or something similar) and that they changed in later
> Hebrew
> to past and non-past or future, even if they often are translated as past
> vs.
> non-past as default for convenience.
>
Well, there are different views, but I think it's a problem either way. Take
a look at virtually any sentence. There are a lot that start off 'vayomer'
'(he) said.' That's the prefix conjugation with a waw. If you hold by the
reversal, it's past or perfective. If you don't, it's non-past or
imperfective, and that would be a strange way to run a narrative along. How
might you translate it? 'And he was saying this, and she was saying
that....' ? And it's all the worse since it's not consistent: you'll get
perfective verbs (without a waw) thrown in too at various points, with no
relation AFAIA to what's going on semantically. OTOH, you do see a certain
general syntactic distribution: waw forms clause-initially, and plain forms
non-initially.
> > I'm not an expert on this, but I thought it was accepted by everyone.
> > Have you heard of arguments against it?
>
> No, not really*. But I haven't really heard arguments for it either. I have
> seen _A New Approach to the Problem of the Hebrew Tenses and Its Solution
> Without Recourse to Waw-consecutive_ by Oswald Leonard Barnes quoted, but I
> haven't read the book myself and can't find it online. When I'm searching
> on
> the topic online most hits seems to only speculate about the diachronical
> origin to it, and many hits are on JSTOR which I can't access.
I found a couple of quotes from there, translated into Spanish, at
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAW_Consecutiva . They're not too illuminating
though. There's also a short one from Benjamin Wills Newton, who says
something about the future having a "progressive" or "expansive" character,
and marvels that "something so ridiculous" as waw conversive was ever
proposed. That doesn't sound so encouraging to me, but I'd have to see more.
> But I'm wondering: Is there any book dealing with the reason to why the
> theory were postulated and why [in the author and reviewers eyes]
> rightfully
> so, to put on my books-to-buy list?
Not that I know of, but maybe. It's also the standard view in Jewish
tradition, BTW. It's called in Hebrew 'vav hahipuch', meaning 'vav of
conversion/reversal'. I haven't been able to find any info on the origin of
the idea in Hebrew either, but it's not new. In what I've seen, it's spoken
of as if it were always understood and accepted.
> * Except that the theory was intended to solve the problems with switching
> tenses, which is more easily solved with an aspectual view, which in turn
> makes the waw-consecutive theory an unnecessary complication.
>
> --
> Veoler
Josh Roth
Messages in this topic (5)
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4a. Redundancy + Ambiguity = What? (+ another question)
Posted by: "Veoler" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 5:37 am ((PDT))
Redundancy + Ambiguity = What?
There have been some talking about redundancy, and sometimes about the
naturalness of ambiguity in a naturalistic conlang. But that got me thinking,
shouldn't they have "opposite effects", so to say?
Imagine language A, a hypothetical natlang:
Phoneme inventory: /g m s a u i/
Lexicon:
gu
1. "be in mental state focused on"
2. "not"
3. "other"
ma
1. "say/speak/tell"
2. "time/place/moment"
mi
1. "big/long/much/many"
2. "be located at/happen when"
su
1. "this/that"
2. "move"
Notice how it have ambiguity, since all words are polysemous. But the
language does also have redundancy, since it only uses four of nine possible
syllables. Is this a realistic picture of a natlang?
Imagine now language B, a hypothetical(?) engelang:
Phoneme inventory: /g m s a u i/
Lexicon:
ga
1. "be in mental state focused on"
gu
1. "not"
gi
1. "other"
ma
1. "say/speak/tell"
mu
1. "time/place/moment"
mi
1. "big/long/much/many"
sa
1. "be located at/happen when"
su
1. "this/that"
si
1. "move"
Notice how both the polysemy and the redundancy are removed.
Now, do the lack of redundancy makes B inferior to A, in actual use? They
both have nine concepts on nine possible words. The possible mishearing in
language B is compensated with the lack of polysemy.
I want my engelang to have the redundancy of a natural language, but,
considering the complete lack of polysemy (on morpheme level), do I need it?
So, if you take both the redundancy and the ambiguity of natural langauges in
the same calculation, what do you get? And how much redundancy do I need in
my engelang, to make it fit for practical use?
Another question is: do regularity increase the need for redundancy?
Imagine following hypothetical sentences in a purely hypothetical language:
a) he will eat = he will eat
b) he ate = he ate
Here's the gloss:
he = he
will = will (future)
eat = eat
ate = ate (eat + past)
Now, compare it to this engelang:
a) ma dola = he will eat
b) ma done = he ate
The gloss:
ma = he
do = eat
la = "will", future
ne = past
Now, it seems like the engelang have a greater need for redundancy, since it
doesn't distinguish syntactically between the two tenses, while the
irregularity of the hypothetical natlang makes the two sentences more
distinctive from each other.
Now, a natlang might have two words, "know" and "give": they are
distinguished in the argument structure: "know" takes two arguments and
"give" takes three. Now, in my engelang they are not, since the argument
structure is part of the inflection:
kenow "know"
konaw "inform"
gevoh "have"
govah "give"
so the roots "k-n-w" and "g-v-h" are more likely to be confused, since the
words will either be "kenow"~"gevoh" with the same argument structure or
"konaw"~"govah" with the same argument structure.
So maybe the lesser need for redundancy due to the lack of polysemy is
compensated with greater need for redundancy due to the regularity?
I want my engelang to have the same degree of redundancy as the average
natlang, and be fit for real use, but exactly how much redundancy is that?
There was talk about not having any minimal pairs in the language a while
back, but is that degree of redundancy really needed?
Your thoughts?
--
Veoler
Messages in this topic (2)
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4b. Re: Redundancy + Ambiguity = What? (+ another question)
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 10:34 am ((PDT))
On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 8:37 AM, Veoler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Redundancy + Ambiguity = What?
>
> There have been some talking about redundancy, and sometimes about the
> naturalness of ambiguity in a naturalistic conlang. But that got me thinking,
> shouldn't they have "opposite effects", so to say?
They're orthogonal; you might can increase or decrease either without
perhaps directly affecting the other, as long as you allow other
variables to vary in response (e.g., average morpheme length).
> Notice how it have ambiguity, since all words are polysemous. But the
> language does also have redundancy, since it only uses four of nine possible
> syllables. Is this a realistic picture of a natlang?
I would guess that that degree of redundancy is unlikely to
occur in a natlang.
> Imagine now language B, a hypothetical(?) engelang:
> Notice how both the polysemy and the redundancy are removed.
>
> Now, do the lack of redundancy makes B inferior to A, in actual use? They
> both have nine concepts on nine possible words. The possible mishearing in
> language B is compensated with the lack of polysemy.
In this case I think it mostly is, because the alternate words
a word could be turned into by a mishearing are mostly in
other distributional categories from the intended word.
> I want my engelang to have the redundancy of a natural language, but,
> considering the complete lack of polysemy (on morpheme level), do I need it?
To some extent, yes.
> Another question is: do regularity increase the need for redundancy?
I'm not sure.
> I want my engelang to have the same degree of redundancy as the average
> natlang, and be fit for real use, but exactly how much redundancy is that?
> There was talk about not having any minimal pairs in the language a while
> back, but is that degree of redundancy really needed?
I would guess that "no minimal pairs at all" is more redundancy
than most languages need; but "no minimal pairs within the same
distributional category" is perhaps a reasonable design criterion
for an engelang. "No minimal pairs" makes sense for a language
designed for a noisy environment.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
Messages in this topic (2)
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5a. Re: Invented Languages receives its ISSN
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 8:47 am ((PDT))
On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 3:36 PM, Rick Harrison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:13:44 +0100, David McCann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
>>If it's published in the USA, aren't you legally obliged to deposit it?
>>All European national libraries (as far as I know) get all new
>>publications by legal deposit.
>
> I was unaware of it but the US also has such a requirement. Details are
> available at http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ07d.html
My understanding is that it used to be a requirement, but hasn't
been so (or at least not as strictly so) since the 1970s copyright
law changes. A few years ago the Librarian of Congress was
asking Congress to tighten the deposit requirements; maybe
that's happened since I last researched the subject.
>
> There are a lot of daily and weekly newspapers and regional monthlies in the
> US. I wonder if the Library of Congress is actually receiving copies of all
> of them -- it seems like the sheer volume of material would be impossible to
> store.
The LoC have a humongous underground section extending a good
distance in each direction from the above-ground visible part, IIRC.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang/fluency-survey.html
Conlang fluency survey -- there's still time to participate before
I analyze the results and write the article
Messages in this topic (8)
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5b. Re: Invented Languages receives its ISSN
Posted by: "Lars Finsen" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 9:07 am ((PDT))
Den 2. sep. 2008 kl. 17.46 skreiv Jim Henry:
>
> The LoC have a humongous underground section extending a good
> distance in each direction from the above-ground visible part, IIRC.
Interesting. Is it accessible to the public?
Hope there are ample cubic kilometers yet of solid rock available for
further excavation below there.
LEF
Messages in this topic (8)
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5c. Re: Invented Languages receives its ISSN
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 9:52 am ((PDT))
On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 12:03 PM, Lars Finsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Den 2. sep. 2008 kl. 17.46 skreiv Jim Henry:
>>
>> The LoC have a humongous underground section extending a good
>> distance in each direction from the above-ground visible part, IIRC.
>
> Interesting. Is it accessible to the public?
It was at one time; not sure about now, post-terrorism panic.
When I went to Washington in 1994 however it was closed
for renovation and they weren't offering public tours
of that section.
The LoC in general has only a few areas generally accessible
to the public; other areas are accessible only as part
of a guided tour (or used to be). You look stuff up in the
catalog and ask a librarian to retrieve a book for you
and bring it to the reading room. Only a few thousand
reference books are shelved in the public areas, IIRC.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
Messages in this topic (8)
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6a. Fourth Persons
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 9:36 am ((PDT))
Several different phenomena in various natlangs have been
called "fourth person" at one time or another by one professional-
linguist author or another.
Here are the ones I can think of at the moment (this list may, or may
not, be complete; does anyone know? If you do, please post the
answer here.)
1. Indefinite pronouns (e.g. "one" in English, "en" in French);
2. Obviatives in languages with Hierarchical Alignment Systems and
Direct/Inverse Voice Systems;
3. Long-Distance Reflexives (or L.D. Anaphora) in languages that have
them.
4. Logophoric Pronouns in languages that have them.
My question is this:
How hard is it to fit more than one of those features into a language?
Does anyone know of a natlang with more than one of them? How many
and which ones?
Does anyone know of a conlang with more than one of them? How many
and which ones?
Has anyone here ever made a 'lang with two of those features? Or
three? Or all four?
Is one of them easier to fit with the others than they are with each
other? Or are there two that are an easier fit to each other than
any other pair?
Messages in this topic (2)
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6b. Re: Fourth Persons
Posted by: "Aidan Grey" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 11:03 am ((PDT))
The Obviative isn't limited to HAS or Direct/Inverse systems. It can appear in
almost any language. You also have to be clear exactly what you mean by
Obviative - there are a number of uses/definitions, IIRC. If it's just "other
third persons", it's pretty common in Native American languages, used for
non-focus arguments. For example, in a tale about Coyote, every third person
other than Coyote would be in the 4th. That's one use, anyway.
The "indefinite" combined with the Obviative is pretty common. I don't know
what you mean in #3 and 4, so I can't speak to that.
Aidan
----- Original Message ----
From: Eldin Raigmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, September 2, 2008 10:36:28 AM
Subject: Fourth Persons
Several different phenomena in various natlangs have been
called "fourth person" at one time or another by one professional-
linguist author or another.
Here are the ones I can think of at the moment (this list may, or may
not, be complete; does anyone know? If you do, please post the
answer here.)
1. Indefinite pronouns (e.g. "one" in English, "en" in French);
2. Obviatives in languages with Hierarchical Alignment Systems and
Direct/Inverse Voice Systems;
3. Long-Distance Reflexives (or L.D. Anaphora) in languages that have
them.
4. Logophoric Pronouns in languages that have them.
My question is this:
How hard is it to fit more than one of those features into a language?
Does anyone know of a natlang with more than one of them? How many
and which ones?
Does anyone know of a conlang with more than one of them? How many
and which ones?
Has anyone here ever made a 'lang with two of those features? Or
three? Or all four?
Is one of them easier to fit with the others than they are with each
other? Or are there two that are an easier fit to each other than
any other pair?
Messages in this topic (2)
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7a. Reflexive & Reciprocal Marked on the Verb
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 9:39 am ((PDT))
I am collaborating on an agglutinating conlang with polypersonal agreement
(verbs agree with their Subject; with their Primary-or-Direct Object if there
is
one; and sometimes with their Secondary-or-Indirect Object if there is one.)
In this 'lang the verb's agreement-markers indicate the semantic role of the
Subject and the Direct Object.
One thing it can indicate is that the Subject, and/or the Object, is both the
Agent and the Patient of the clause.
Thus, if the clause is reflexive or reciprocal, no additional marking is needed
to
establish that it must be EITHER reflexive OR reciprocal.
However, this system can't tell "reflexive" apart from "reciprocal".
That is, "Jack and Jill (each) kissed themselves" and "Jack and Jill kissed
each
other" have the same agreement-markers on the verb.
How do your 'langs (whether nat- or con-) handle this?
Do they just not distinguish "reflexive" from "reciprocal"?
Do they distinguish it by marking the verb with, say, a "voice"
or "version" of "reflexive" or "reciprocal" (not the same)?
Or do they mark the difference elsewhere in the clause, say by either a
reflexive pronoun or a reciprocal pronoun or both?
Messages in this topic (4)
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7b. Re: Reflexive & Reciprocal Marked on the Ver
Posted by: "Philip Newton" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 10:14 am ((PDT))
On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 18:38, Eldin Raigmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> However, this system can't tell "reflexive" apart from "reciprocal".
>
> That is, "Jack and Jill (each) kissed themselves" and "Jack and Jill kissed
> each
> other" have the same agreement-markers on the verb.
>
> How do your 'langs (whether nat- or con-) handle this?
> Do they just not distinguish "reflexive" from "reciprocal"?
> Do they distinguish it by marking the verb with, say, a "voice"
> or "version" of "reflexive" or "reciprocal" (not the same)?
> Or do they mark the difference elsewhere in the clause, say by either a
> reflexive pronoun or a reciprocal pronoun or both?
German has a separate reciprocal pronoun: "Sie küssten einander" is
"They kissed one-another". However, "Sie küssten sich" is ambiguous
between "They kissed themselves" and "They kissed one another". If you
want to disambiguate, "Sie küssten sich selbst" would probably be
understood as "They kissed themselves", though it could also mean
"They themselves kissed one another" or "They kissed one another by
themselves [without assistance]". (And "Sie selbst küssten sich" is
ambiguous as to ends up getting kissed and also ambiguous between
"they themselves" and "they, by themselves".)
Modern Greek, as far as I know, typically keeps it ambiguous with its
mediopassive voice - "O Tzak kai i Tzil filiountan" can, I think, mean
either. MG does have a reciprocal pronoun, though: "O Tzak kai i Tzil
filousan allilous", though I'm not sure how commonly used it is. And a
more explicit construction: "O Tzak kai i Tzil filousan o enas ton
allo" (Literally, "The Jack and the Jill kissed the.NOM one.NOM
the.ACC other.ACC".)
Klingon, which marks subject and object on verbs, also has suffixes
for reflexive and reciprocal -- separate ones, so you can distinguish
between {chop'egh jaq jIl je} "Jack and Jill bit themselves" (with
the verb marked for 3p subject and no object, though the marker for
that -- the zero morpheme -- also encodes several other S/O
possibilities) and {chopchuq jaq jIl je} "Jack and Jill bit one
another". (In each case, one could also translate with the present
"bite" rather than "bit", since Klingon marks aspect, not tense.)
For, say, first person, the sentences would be {machop'egh} "We bit
ourselves" and {machopchuq} "we bit one another", with {ma-} encoding
1p subject and no object.
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (4)
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7c. Re: Reflexive & Reciprocal Marked on the Verb
Posted by: "Michael Poxon" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 11:05 am ((PDT))
Omina has a reflexive suffix -kse which can be combined with a conjugated
preposition to give the idea of reciprocity:
Using enki "hit":
enki irekse = "They hit themselves" (i.e., A hits A, B hits B)
enki irekse 'rea = "They hit each other" (i.e., A hits B, B hits A), using
the preposition e ("across, over") which takes the locative case, thus
literally "They hit across them")
Mike
>
> However, this system can't tell "reflexive" apart from "reciprocal".
>
> That is, "Jack and Jill (each) kissed themselves" and "Jack and Jill
> kissed each
> other" have the same agreement-markers on the verb.
>
> How do your 'langs (whether nat- or con-) handle this?
Messages in this topic (4)
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7d. Re: Reflexive & Reciprocal Marked on the Verb
Posted by: "Aidan Grey" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 12:03 pm ((PDT))
Taalen does the following:
reflexive: distinct marker
reciprocal: reflexive plus the distributive marker
I have the morphology figured out, but not the morphemes. For example purposes,
assume a- and -na for the reflexive and distributive respectively.
we see ourselves : ailham /'[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ (a REFL + eilha 'see' + m
1+2PRON )
we see each other : ailhanam /aj.'[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ (a REFL + eilha 'see' + na
DIST + m 1+2PRON)
Aidan
----- Original Message ----
From: Eldin Raigmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
How do your 'langs (whether nat- or con-) handle this?
Do they just not distinguish "reflexive" from "reciprocal"?
Do they distinguish it by marking the verb with, say, a "voice"
or "version" of "reflexive" or "reciprocal" (not the same)?
Or do they mark the difference elsewhere in the clause, say by either a
reflexive pronoun or a reciprocal pronoun or both?
Messages in this topic (4)
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8. Consecutives like Hebrew's "waw-consecutives" in your 'langs
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2008 9:41 am ((PDT))
I am thinking of a clause-chaining feature like Hebrew's "wa-consecutives".
I am imagining four clause-conjunctions (conjunctions that connect clauses
with the meaning "and").
One will be used only if the clauses have the same Aspect,
Modality/Mode/Mood, Polarity, Tense, and Voice.
One will be used only if the clauses have the same TAM (Tense, Aspect, and
Mood/Mode/Modality) but either different Voice or different Polarity or both.
One will be used only if the clauses have the same VAP (Voice, Aspect, and
Polarity) but either different Tense or different Mood/Mode/Modality or both.
One will be used otherwise; that is, if the clauses differ in Aspect, or if
they
differ both in one (or both) of Tense or Mood, and in one (or both) of Voice
and Polarity.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
How reasonable is that?
Are there any natlangs that have similar phenomena?
What "motivates" such "switching vs nonswitching" type clause-conjunctions
in natlangs, where what's switched or not isn't a reference to a participant?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related additional questions about fusion of verb morphology.
TAM) How common is it for a 'lang to fuse Tense, Aspect, and
Modality/Mode/Mood? Does your 'lang?
TA) How common is it for a 'lang to fuse Tense and Aspect? Does your 'lang?
TM) How common is it for a 'lang to fuse Tense and Modality/Mode/Mood?
Does your 'lang?
AM) How common is it for a 'lang to fuse Aspect and Modality/Mode/Mood?
Does your 'lang?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
VAP) How common is it for a 'lang to fuse Voice, Aspect, and Polarity? Does
your 'lang?
VA) How common is it for a 'lang to fuse Voice and Aspect? Does your 'lang?
VP) How common is it for a 'lang to fuse Voice and Polarity? Does your 'lang?
AP) How common is it for a 'lang to fuse Aspect and Polarity? Does your 'lang?
Messages in this topic (1)
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