There are 17 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
From: Logan Kearsley
1b. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
1c. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
From: R A Brown
1d. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
From: taliesin the storyteller
1e. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
From: Mechthild Czapp
1f. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
From: Larry Sulky
1g. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
From: Jeffrey Jones
1h. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
From: Eldin Raigmore
2a. Re: TECH: "best" way to organize directory of conlangs
From: taliesin the storyteller
2b. Re: TECH: "best" way to organize directory of conlangs
From: Jim Henry
3a. Re: Language Sketch: Gogido
From: Logan Kearsley
4. Reminder: Bay Area Conlangs Meetup & Glossotechnia Playtest tomorrow
From: Sai Emrys
5a. Re: Greenlandic: 4th Person?
From: Eldin Raigmore
5b. Re: Greenlandic: 4th Person?
From: Eldin Raigmore
6a. Re: Consecutives like Hebrew's "waw-consecutives" in your 'langs
From: Eldin Raigmore
7a. Re: [aboriconlangs] Greenlandic: 4th Person?
From: Eldin Raigmore
8a. Re: Celadon
From: Eldin Raigmore
Messages
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1a. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 5, 2008 10:52 am ((PDT))
On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:08 PM, Logan Kearsley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 12:44 PM, R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Logan Kearsley wrote:
>>>
>>> Consider the sentence "I ate the fruit on the table."
>>> In English, this is structurally ambiguous, because the prepositional
>>> phrase can apply to the verb or a noun- did I eat fruit which was on
>>> the table, or did I eat the fruit while I was on the table?
>>> I think someone mentioned a conlang that has a semantic distinction
>>> between adverbial and adjectival prepositions;
>>
>> Quite likely, tho I can't think of one immediately. But Classical Latin
>> certainly makes a distinction. In CL prepositional phrases may be used only
>> adverbially.
>
> Not quite the same thing, I think. In that case, there's only one
> semantic class, and it does only one thing- modifying verbs; applying
> the same meaning to a noun requires some circumlocution to put a
> convenient extra verb in the way. It still avoids the ambiguity that
> arises in English from having a single semantic class that does two
> things, but it's different from having two distinct classes that each
> do one thing.
Additional thought- how common is it to have adpositional phrases
which can behave adjectivally at all?
English has a habit of eliding lots of grammatical information like
complementizers and relative pronouns and copulas in relative clauses,
and so it just occurred to me that every instance of a prepositional
phrase modifying a noun, like "the fruit on the table", could be
explained as a relative clause that's been heavily elided- "the fruit
[which is] on the table".
-l.
Messages in this topic (10)
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1b. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
Posted by: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 5, 2008 12:50 pm ((PDT))
Logan Kearsley writes:
>
> Additional thought- how common is it to have
> adpositional phrases which can behave adjectivally
> at all? English has a habit of eliding lots of
> grammatical information like complementizers and
> relative pronouns and copulas in relative clauses,
> and so it just occurred to me that every instance
> of a prepositional phrase modifying a noun, like
> "the fruit on the table", could be explained as a
> relative clause that's been heavily elided- "the
> fruit [which is] on the table".
Good question. In English, participles usually come
before the noun. "I ate the stolen fruit." But if
there is more to the participle, it comes after: "I
ate the fruit stolen by my uncle." This could be
taken as an ellipsis of "I ate the fruit which was
stolen by my uncle."
Usually I see this in Esperanto as well: "Mi mangxis
la frukton sxtelitan de mia onklo." But in books
by Scandinavian authors, the phrase is commonly
placed in front: "Mi mangxis la sxtelitan de mia
onklo frukton."
--Ph. D.
Messages in this topic (10)
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1c. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
Posted by: "R A Brown" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Sep 6, 2008 6:21 am ((PDT))
Logan Kearsley wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 12:44 PM, R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Logan Kearsley wrote:
>>> Consider the sentence "I ate the fruit on the table."
>>> In English, this is structurally ambiguous, because the prepositional
>>> phrase can apply to the verb or a noun- did I eat fruit which was on
>>> the table, or did I eat the fruit while I was on the table?
>>> I think someone mentioned a conlang that has a semantic distinction
>>> between adverbial and adjectival prepositions;
>> Quite likely, tho I can't think of one immediately. But Classical Latin
>> certainly makes a distinction. In CL prepositional phrases may be used only
>> adverbially.
>
> Not quite the same thing, I think. In that case, there's only one
> semantic class, and it does only one thing- modifying verbs; applying
> the same meaning to a noun requires some circumlocution to put a
> convenient extra verb in the way. It still avoids the ambiguity that
> arises in English from having a single semantic class that does two
> things,
It does - but I was merely trying to cite an example of a language which
does does distinguish between adjectival functions & adverbial ones.
> but it's different from having two distinct classes that each do one thing.
Or would a distinction between adpositions that head phrases used
adverbially & phrases used adjectivally be shown rather by a difference
of inflexion? In which case are not such adpositions rather to be
considered sub-classes of adverbs & adjectives respectively?
For example, let us suppose that Esperanto did mark prepositions in this
way; then we might have:
*mi mangxis la fruktojn sure la tablo = I ate the fruit [while I was] on
the table.
*mi mangxis la fruktojn surajn la tablo = I ate the fruit [which was] on
the table.
(Again I assume that 'fruit' in English is being used as a mass noun. I
believe - tho i could well be wrong - that 'frukto' is a count noun in
Esperanto.)
[snip]
>>> Then the case where the fruit was on the table before I ate it would
>>> be "I ate the fruit on the table", whereas the case where I ate the
>>> fruit while I was on the table would be "I ate the fruit the table on"
>>> / "I the table on ate the fruit".
>> I see; adpositional phrases use a preposition if they function adverbially
>> but a postposition if they function adjectivally. Interesting idea - somehow
>> I doubt that any natlang works like that - but you newer know with ANADEW
>> ;)
>
> There are natlangs with mixed adpositional systems, aren't there?
Indeed - English is one of if you accept that _ago_ is a postposition
(but we've discussed _ago_ on this list more than once, and I am well
aware other analyses are possible).
Perhaps a better example is Latin where most adpositions are
prepositions, but there are some postpositions, e.g. _tenus_ (as far as,
up to) which _follows_ the ablative case.
There's the oddly behaved _cum_ which is normally a preposition, but is
always a postposition when it governs a personal pronoun, and can be
either if governs the relative or interrogative pronouns qui/quis.
Some languages have a greater number of adpositions occupying either
preposited or postposited positions. By AFAIK this is due to the way the
words developed from whatever they'd originally been (often adverbs) to
their status as adpositions, and that in these languages certain words
were (almost) always prepositions & others postpositions.
I
> wonder what else they'd be used for....
> I started contemplating altering one of my conlangs to use this sort
> of system (it would be a great post-fact historical explanation for
> why a few irregular features are the way they are), but I have a
> nagging feeling that it could result in different ambiguity as to
> which noun is supposed the object of an adposition;
That had actually occurred to me also.
-----------------------------------------------------
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Logan Kearsley writes:
>>
>> Additional thought- how common is it to have adpositional phrases
>> which can behave adjectivally at all?
Quite common, I think. They were there in Ancient Greek, e.g. hoi en
te:i ne:i andres = the in the boat people men = the men in the boat.
One could also omit the noun and just use the article if the meaning was
clear, e.g. hoi en te:i ne:i = the [people] in the boat
Although Classical Latin was strict in using prepositional phrases only
adverbially, in Late Latin & Medieval Latin they were certainly also
used adjectivally. AFAIK the use of prepositional phrases both
adjectivally & adverbially is fairly commonplace in (western?) European
languages.
>> English has a habit of eliding
>> lots of grammatical information like complementizers and relative
>> pronouns and copulas in relative clauses,
>> and so it just occurred to me that every instance of a prepositional
>> phrase modifying a noun, like "the fruit on the table", could be
>> explained as a relative clause that's been heavily elided- "the fruit
>> [which is] on the table".
It could - it is not necessary IMO.
> Good question. In English, participles usually come
> before the noun. "I ate the stolen fruit." But if
> there is more to the participle, it comes after: "I
> ate the fruit stolen by my uncle." This could be
> taken as an ellipsis of "I ate the fruit which was
> stolen by my uncle."
It could - but that analysis falls down, I think, in languages where
participles are clearly marked with adjective endings.
> Usually I see this in Esperanto as well: "Mi mangxis
> la frukton ." But in books
> by Scandinavian authors, the phrase is commonly
> placed in front: "Mi mangxis la sxtelitan de mia
> onklo frukton."
Yep - the latter is just like in ancient Greek or TAKE :)
(But both ancient Greek and TAKE insists on repeating the definite
article if the phrase follows the noun, as tho one were to say: la
frukton la sxtelitan de mia onklo - I guess that just ain't allowed in E-o.)
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Frustra fit per plura quod potest
fieri per pauciora.
[William of Ockham]
Messages in this topic (10)
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1d. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Sep 6, 2008 7:16 am ((PDT))
* Logan Kearsley said on 2008-09-05 17:57:34 +0200
> Consider the sentence "I ate the fruit on the table."
> In English, this is structurally ambiguous, because the prepositional
> phrase can apply to the verb or a noun- did I eat fruit which was on
> the table, or did I eat the fruit while I was on the table?
> I think someone mentioned a conlang that has a semantic distinction
> between adverbial and adjectival prepositions; that would be
> interesting to investigate.
In Taruven that sentence would not be ambiguous as either the subject or
the object would have a suffix of their own.
t.
Messages in this topic (10)
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1e. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
Posted by: "Mechthild Czapp" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Sep 6, 2008 7:51 am ((PDT))
-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 16:15:30 +0200
> Von: taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> An: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Betreff: Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adpositions
> * Logan Kearsley said on 2008-09-05 17:57:34 +0200
> > Consider the sentence "I ate the fruit on the table."
> > In English, this is structurally ambiguous, because the prepositional
> > phrase can apply to the verb or a noun- did I eat fruit which was on
> > the table, or did I eat the fruit while I was on the table?
> > I think someone mentioned a conlang that has a semantic distinction
> > between adverbial and adjectival prepositions; that would be
> > interesting to investigate.
>
> In Taruven that sentence would not be ambiguous as either the subject or
> the object would have a suffix of their own.
>
>
> t.
Rejistanian would use the position here: xe'vuana hylik'het jenak'ra = I eat
the fruit on the table.
xe'vuana jenak'ra hylik'het = I eat, while on the table, the fruit.
jenak'ra here means "on the table". I separate pre- and suffixes by a
apostrophe.
--
Der GMX SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen!
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Messages in this topic (10)
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1f. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
Posted by: "Larry Sulky" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Sep 6, 2008 7:56 am ((PDT))
On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 11:57 AM, Logan Kearsley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Consider the sentence "I ate the fruit on the table."
> In English, this is structurally ambiguous, because the prepositional
> phrase can apply to the verb or a noun- did I eat fruit which was on
> the table, or did I eat the fruit while I was on the table?
> I think someone mentioned a conlang that has a semantic distinction
> between adverbial and adjectival prepositions; that would be
> interesting to investigate.
Check Konya and Ilomi.
Messages in this topic (10)
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1g. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
Posted by: "Jeffrey Jones" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Sep 6, 2008 8:20 am ((PDT))
On Fri, 5 Sep 2008 11:57:34 -0400, Logan Kearsley
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Consider the sentence "I ate the fruit on the table."
> In English, this is structurally ambiguous, because the prepositional
> phrase can apply to the verb or a noun- did I eat fruit which was on
> the table, or did I eat the fruit while I was on the table?
> I think someone mentioned a conlang that has a semantic distinction
> between adverbial and adjectival prepositions; that would be
> interesting to investigate. But what about using different syntax to
> distinguish the two cases? Say, prepositions as noun-modifiers, and
> postpositions as verb-modifiers (or vice-versa)?
>
> Then the case where the fruit was on the table before I ate it would be
> "I ate the fruit on the table",
> whereas the case where I ate the fruit while I was on the table would be
> "I ate the fruit the table on" /
> "I the table on ate the fruit".
>
> -l.
I've never tried your idea, although that has absolutely no bearing on whether
it's been done/it occurs in natlangs. :)
Most of the time the adverbial/adjectival distinction is made in my conlangs,
morphology is used. For example, if the prepositional phrase is used as an
adjective, the preposition takes the same agreement (any of gender, number,
case) that an adjective takes.
In klop, I do use syntax, though. There are no adjectives or prepositions
(these are replaced by verbs). Relative clauses are used for noun-modifiers
and small clauses or adverbial clauses for verb-modifiers. Examples (using
glosses etc.):
k>a eat fruit r>a on table. (adjectival; r = relative pronoun)
k>a eat fruit k>a on table. (secondary; k = speaker(s) in this case)
(a means the phrase is anaphoric, > is direct voice)
Jeff
Messages in this topic (10)
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1h. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Sep 6, 2008 9:28 am ((PDT))
---In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Logan Kearsley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>wrote:
>[snip]
>Additional thought- how common is it to have adpositional phrases
>which can behave adjectivally at all?
Almost every language has at least one "case" in which the thus-"cased" noun
modifies another noun; in other words, a lexical-or-syntactic-or-morphological-
or-combination-of-those way to make a noun act like an adjective.
Almost all grammarians of such languages call at least one
such "case" "genitive".
Either that "case" actually is a case (shown by morphology of the noun), or it
is shown by an adposition (a lexical solution), or it is shown by some kind of
syntactic means; often a combination of two or three (a case and an
adposition, or a case and juxtaposition/word-order, or an adposition and
juxtaposition/word-order).
When writing grammars for languages that have more than one adnominal
case, sometimes linguists just call them "First Genitive, Second Genitive, ...
etc.".
But the "partitive case", in languages that have one, is often also an
adnominal case.
--------------------------------
Some languages, in instances where one noun is an attribute of another, mark
the head-noun instead of the attributive noun; the head-noun goes in "the
construct state". In particular some Semitic languages, such as Hebrew, don't
mark the possessor, but instead mark the thing possessed.
But I'll bet Hebrew still has some adnominal case(s) or other.
>English has a habit of eliding lots of grammatical information like
>complementizers and relative pronouns and copulas in relative
>clauses, and so it just occurred to me that every instance of a
>prepositional phrase modifying a noun,
>like "the fruit on the table", could be explained as
>a relative clause
>that's been heavily elided - "the fruit [which is] on the table".
English's genitives are usually shown by the preposition "of". In case the
meaning of the genitive is "possessive", they're often shown by the suffix "'s"
(the "Saxon genitive").
For other "adnominal" prepositional phrases, though, I think your explanation
is
probably correrct.
>-l.
Messages in this topic (10)
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2a. Re: TECH: "best" way to organize directory of conlangs
Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 5, 2008 1:59 pm ((PDT))
* Jim Henry said on 2008-09-04 17:55:28 +0200
> On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 7:59 AM, taliesin the storyteller wrote:
> > * Jim Henry said on 2008-09-03 23:08:03 +0200
> > > The Conlang Atlas of Language Structures is really spiffy
> > > but maybe overkill for what you want.
>
> > Adding a page with just the language-name + the background
> > would take me maybe 5-10 minutes...
Correction, it took 2 minutes:
http://cals.conlang.org/jrklist/
That's a dump of languages that have a background set, + a link
to their CALS-page. Unfortunately only a third of the languages
at CALS have set a background in the first place.
> And maybe, as Rick suggested, make the background field (and
> the tags field, mabye?) multilingual, so you could have
> background descriptions in multiple languages...?
I wound up starting on a generic system for storing translations
(and converted the greeting to using it), the beginnings can be
seen at:
http://cals.conlang.org/language/testarossa/translations/
All languages have the ./translations/-page but unless they have
a greeting, the page is empty.
Unfortunately that system won't work for a language-background,
as each background would then have to be made its own
translation exercise and that just doesn't feel right.
But: I can make an API (or just a JSON-file) available, then
anyone could read it at their end, add things to it and spit the
new version out at some other end.
t.
Messages in this topic (2)
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2b. Re: TECH: "best" way to organize directory of conlangs
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 5, 2008 2:13 pm ((PDT))
On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 4:58 PM, taliesin the storyteller
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> And maybe, as Rick suggested, make the background field (and
>> the tags field, mabye?) multilingual, so you could have
>> background descriptions in multiple languages...?
.....
> Unfortunately that system won't work for a language-background,
> as each background would then have to be made its own
> translation exercise and that just doesn't feel right.
What I (and I think Rick) had in mind was an option
to offer background descriptions in multiple languages
that users of the site might be able to read: English,
French, German, Esperanto, Interlingua.... maybe
any language with an ISO code?
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
Messages in this topic (2)
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3a. Re: Language Sketch: Gogido
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 5, 2008 3:10 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 3:19 PM, Logan Kearsley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The basic idea behind this language is to make it as flexible as
> possible, and as simple as possible. So, it has an enormous sound
> inventory, but a fairly small number of phonemes with lots of
> allophones. I had a side-goal of making it pronounceable by the widest
> variety of people possible, but that occasionally takes a back seat to
> my sense of aesthetics.
I've finally gotten around to starting to update my website with my
latest conlang work, and Gogido is the first one to get updated. So,
if anybody cares to look, some more extensive documentation is at
http://timesurfer.linuxcowboy.net/langs/gogido/index.html .
It's still obviously far from complete; part of that is because
there's still a lot of stuff left undone, still-to-be-decided, less of
it is just due to the fact that I'm lazy and haven't finished
documenting everything yet.
-l.
Messages in this topic (16)
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4. Reminder: Bay Area Conlangs Meetup & Glossotechnia Playtest tomorrow
Posted by: "Sai Emrys" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 5, 2008 9:55 pm ((PDT))
* 2pm - ?, tomorrow (Saturday)
* 5 blocks from Downtown Berkeley BART; email / call for directions
* I has a cat (cat has a me?), so please tell if you're allergic
* bring potlucky stuff
* short walk to nearby park if allergies or quantity require
* Glossotechnia playtesting & conlanger geekery
- Sai
Messages in this topic (1)
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5a. Re: Greenlandic: 4th Person?
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Sep 6, 2008 8:46 am ((PDT))
On Fri, 5 Sep 2008 17:08:22 +0200, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>Eldin Raigmore writes:
>>...
>> Isir-puq ingil-lu-ni-lu.
>>...
>> Pilirtuttumik irrui-vuq ini-mi-nul-lu majuar-lu-ni.
>>...
>Was that an exact copy of what was written in that book/paper?
Those are exact copies of examples 37b and 37c on page 31 of Juliens book;
I dont know whether or not she made exact copies of Fortescues book/paper.
The suffixes in question are definitely:
39a -put and -pput for -IND.3p and IND.3p respectively;
39b -puq for IND.3s;
39c -vuq for IND.3s.
>Because it should be -poq and -voq instead of *-puq and *-vuq.
>Kalaallisut has an /a i u/ vowel system and before uvulars, /u/ is
>pronounced as [o] or even [O] and thus written as _o_.
>The underlying ending is often written as 'Vuq', but is realised as
>either -poq or -voq or -por- or -vor- (and maybe even -pu- and -vu,
>although I don't remember an example), depending on phonological
>context.
There are other Greenlandic examples in Juliens book that seem to say what
you seem to be saying they should say.
Examples 32a and 32b are from Sadock 1980:311
Noun Incorporation in Greenlandic, Jerrold M. Sadock, Language 56, 300-319,
1980
32a
Suulut timmisartu-lior-poq.
Soren.ABS aeroplane-make-IND.3s
32b
Sulu-usa-qar-poq aquute-qar-luu-ni-lu.
wing-like-have-IND.3s rudder-have-CTMP-4s-and
But all the examples from Fortescue have an <o> written for the vowel in
those suffixes.
39a
Illu-at kusanar-puq kial-lu-ni-lu.
house-3p be.pretty-IND.3s be.warm-CTMP-4s-and
39b
Qimmiq taanna nakuarsu-vuq saamasuu-llu-ni-li.
dog that be.strong-IND.3s be.gentle-CTMP-4s-but
So does one other example from one other source.
>From Denny 1989:239
(The Nature of Polysynthesis in Algonquian and Eskimo by J. Peter Denny,
pp. 230-258 in Theoretical Perspectives on Native American Languages,
edited by Donna B. Gerdts and Karin Michelson, SUNY Press, Albany, New York.)
Erner-taar-put, aster-lu-gu-lu Mala-mik.
son-get-IND.3p call-CTMP-3O-and Mala-INSTR
Messages in this topic (5)
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5b. Re: Greenlandic: 4th Person?
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Sep 6, 2008 9:03 am ((PDT))
On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 11:46:08 -0400, Eldin Raigmore
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>But all the examples from Fortescue have an <o> written for the vowel in
>those suffixes.
Sorry. I meant to say:
But all the examples from Fortescue have a <u> written for the vowel in those
suffixes.
Messages in this topic (5)
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6a. Re: Consecutives like Hebrew's "waw-consecutives" in your 'langs
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Sep 6, 2008 8:53 am ((PDT))
On Wed, 3 Sep 2008 13:58:36 -0400, Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>Would you use a similar set of quartets for various other conjunctive
>notions? "Or", "nor", "if", "that", "then", "while", etc.?
It has occurred to me that "nor" is just like "and" for items of negative
polarity.
That is, if I want to co-ordinately conjoin a chain of clauses all of negative
polarity, and all of the same voice and same aspect, I should use the same
version of "and" that I'd use if they were all of positive polarity. The
difference between "and" and "nor" would be shown by the polarity within the
clauses rather than by the conjunction.
Messages in this topic (5)
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7a. Re: [aboriconlangs] Greenlandic: 4th Person?
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Sep 6, 2008 8:55 am ((PDT))
On Fri, 5 Sep 2008 17:18:32 +0200, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>To answer your question:
Thanks!
>eldin_raigmore writes:
>> a.
>> Ippasaq tikip-put aqagu-lu ikinnguta-at tiki-ssa-pput.
>> yesterday arrive-IND.3p tomorrow-and friends-3p arrive-FUT-IND.3p
>> "They arrived yesterday and their friends will arrive tomorrow."
>
>3rd person possessive here refers to the previous clause's subject,
>not to the subject of the clause it is in.
>
>> b.
>> Isir-puq ingil-lu-ni-lu.
>> com.in-IND.3s sit.down-CTMP-4s-and
>> "She came in and sat down."
>
>4th person subject here refers reflexively (long-distance reflexive)
>to the previous clause, coindexing the subjects (note the ellipsis in
>English).
>
>> c.
>> Pilirtuttumik irrui-vuq ini-mi-nul-lu majuar-lu-ni.
>> quickly wash.up-IND.3s room-4s.REFL-ALL-and go.up-CTMP-4s
>> "He washed up quickly and went up to his room."
>
>4th person subject: long-distance reflexive to previous clause (again:
>ellipsis in English),
>
>4th persion possessive: normal reflexive to subject of second clause.
>
>> (1) Why are these fourth person?
>
>Reflexives. Both long-distance (as subject verb ending) and normal
>(as possessive).
Hmm.
So the clitic "-lu" is more of a subordinating conjunction than a co-ordinating
one.
Is Greenlandic one of those languages that don't draw a deep distinction
between subordination and co-ordination?
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
8a. Re: Celadon
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Sep 6, 2008 8:57 am ((PDT))
On Fri, 5 Sep 2008 11:51:50 -0500, Eric Christopherson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Sep 5, 2008, at 9:17 AM, Eldin Raigmore wrote:
>
>> (Should this have a tag on it? What tag?)
>> Etymology:
>> Where did the word "Celadon" come from?
>> If it came into English from French or Arabic or Sanskrit,
>> how did it get into French or Arabic or Sanskrit (as the case may be)?
>
>AHD says (and other dictionaries listed at etymonline.com say similar
>things):
>
>French, after Céladon, a character in L'Astrée, a romance by Honoré
>d'Urfé (15681625), French writer, after Celadôn, a character in
>Ovid's Metamorphoses.
>
>Wikipedia says:
>
>The term "celadon" for the pottery's pale jade-green glaze was first
>applied by European connoisseurs of the wares. One theory is that the
>name first appeared in France in the 17th century and is named after
>the shepherd Celadon in Honoré d'Urfé's French pastoral romance,
>L'Astrée (1627), who wore pale green ribbons. (D'Urfe, in turn,
>borrowed his character from Ovid's Metamorphoses.) Another is that
>the term is a corruption of the name of Saladin (Salah ad-Din), the
>Ayyubid Sultan, who in 1171 sent forty pieces of the ceramic to Nur
>ad-Din, Sultan of Syria.[2] Yet another is the word derives from the
>Sanskrit sila and dhara, which mean "stone" and "green" respectively.
>
>
>
>I can't find the etymology of Latin Celadôn/Greek Keladôn.
Thanks very much, Eric and everybody!
Messages in this topic (7)
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