There are 16 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: The evolution of an irregular copula From: Gary Shannon 1b. Re: The evolution of an irregular copula From: R A Brown 1c. Re: The evolution of an irregular copula From: Gary Shannon 1d. Re: The evolution of an irregular copula From: Roger Mills 1e. Re: The evolution of an irregular copula From: Gary Shannon 1f. Re: The evolution of an irregular copula From: R A Brown 2a. 30-Day Conlang: Day Seven From: Gary Shannon 2b. Re: 30-Day Conlang: Day Seven From: Roger Mills 2c. Re: 30-Day Conlang: Day Seven From: Gary Shannon 3a. Ejective distributions From: Patrick Dunn 3b. Re: Ejective distributions From: Matthew Boutilier 3c. Re: Ejective distributions From: Wm Annis 3d. Re: Ejective distributions From: Alex Fink 3e. Re: Ejective distributions From: Matthew Boutilier 3f. Re: Ejective distributions From: Alex Fink 3g. Re: Ejective distributions From: David McCann Messages ________________________________________________________________________ 1a. Re: The evolution of an irregular copula Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com Date: Sun Nov 7, 2010 9:54 am ((PST)) On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 12:53 AM, R A Brown <r...@carolandray.plus.com> wrote: > > The main problem about any such reanalysis, it seems to me, is that altho > the language is declared to be VOS, _we haven't had any examples of such a > sentence to see how it works_. > > All Gary's examples have so far been of complement-copula-subject. My apologies. I assumed that since this concerned my 30-day conlang project people would know to look at my 30-day project website for many, many examples of normal VOS sentences in the conlang. http://fiziwig.com/conlang/thirty_day.html But you know what they say about when you ASSUME.... --gary Messages in this topic (13) ________________________________________________________________________ 1b. Re: The evolution of an irregular copula Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com Date: Sun Nov 7, 2010 12:00 pm ((PST)) On 07/11/2010 17:51, Gary Shannon wrote: > On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 12:53 AM, R A > Brown<r...@carolandray.plus.com> wrote: > >> >> The main problem about any such reanalysis, it seems to >> me, is that altho the language is declared to be VOS, >> _we haven't had any examples of such a sentence to see >> how it works_. >> >> All Gary's examples have so far been of >> complement-copula-subject. > > My apologies. I assumed that since this concerned my > 30-day conlang project people would know to look at my > 30-day project website for many, many examples of normal > VOS sentences in the conlang. > > http://fiziwig.com/conlang/thirty_day.html > > But you know what they say about when you ASSUME.... Yep - sorry. Just got back from holiday & I sort of missed the earlier bits. Yep, they do indeed contain examples of transitive verbs with objects and one can see the VOS typology. But on Day 6, I maintain that "And while the principle word order is still VOS when the verb is the copula the word order has become OVS with an irregular copula.." is linguistically incorrect. If we're dealing with a copula then we do not have an object. The order is Complement-X-Subject. The question is what the X is. I still do not understand why, when the copula is dropped, those words become regarded as an irregular copula. Why hasn't the language simply joined the many others that have a 'zero copula'? -- Ray ================================== http://www.carolandray.plus.com ================================== "Ein Kopf, der auf seine eigene Kosten denkt, wird immer Eingriffe in die Sprache thun." [J.G. Hamann, 1760] "A mind that thinks at its own expense will always interfere with language". Messages in this topic (13) ________________________________________________________________________ 1c. Re: The evolution of an irregular copula Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com Date: Sun Nov 7, 2010 1:18 pm ((PST)) On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 11:57 AM, R A Brown <r...@carolandray.plus.com> wrote: > > But on Day 6, I maintain that "And while the principle word order is still > VOS when the verb is the copula the word order has become OVS with an > irregular copula.." is linguistically incorrect. If we're dealing with a > copula then we do not have an object. The order is Complement-X-Subject. > > The question is what the X is. I still do not understand why, when the > copula is dropped, those words become regarded as an irregular copula. Why > hasn't the language > simply joined the many others that have a 'zero copula'? > I think my post was premature and ill-advised. A this point in the evolution of the language I should only be descriptive and not prescriptive. The language is going through a lot of changes very rapidly, due to the 30-day deadline and my desire to just "let it happen" without any analytical thought or planning. So at this point I'm not sure the grammar makes any sense yet, nor does it need to until it "stabilizes" and becomes more consistent. So question like "why..." and "how..." I can't really answer yet. After the 30-days of un-planned translation, THEN I will look back on the result and parse the sentences to see if I can extract a consistent grammar. So, to tell the truth, my observations about the copula were very premature, and I really had no business being analytical this early into the project. It kind of defeats the whole purpose of trying to "blindly stumble" without the benefit (or prejudice) of forethought, and to simply allow the grammar to happen, more or less accidentally. --gary Messages in this topic (13) ________________________________________________________________________ 1d. Re: The evolution of an irregular copula Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com Date: Sun Nov 7, 2010 3:54 pm ((PST)) --- On Sun, 11/7/10, R A Brown <r...@carolandray.plus.com> wrote: > >> > >> The main problem about any such reanalysis, it > seems to > >> me, is that altho the language is declared to be > VOS, > >> _we haven't had any examples of such a sentence to > see > >> how it works_. > >> > >> All Gary's examples have so far been of > >> complement-copula-subject. > > (Gary:) > > My apologies. I assumed that since this concerned my > > 30-day conlang project people would know to look at > my > > 30-day project website for many, many examples of > normal > > VOS sentences in the conlang. > > > > http://fiziwig.com/conlang/thirty_day.html > > > > But you know what they say about when you ASSUME.... > > Yep - sorry. Sorry to say, I too have not read the website fully. But I assume there are sentences of the type "X is/was a Y" which apparently come out as _Y + Tense + X_ > (snipalot) > If we're dealing with a > copula then we do not have an object. The order is > Complement-X-Subject. Translating my ex. into Ray, my "Tense" is his "X" > > The question is what the X is. Perhaps I'm wrong in calling it "tense"? > I still do not > understand why, when the copula is dropped, those words > become regarded as an irregular copula. Why hasn't the > language > simply joined the many others that have a 'zero copula'? > Hear hear. Furthermore, why not simply say that predicative adjectives behave like (or indeed _are_) verbs? And if the little X words (Tense?) are indeed tense indicators (in addition to being time indicators*) why not juxtapose them directly after the Verb/Adj form? That would be a good way, in some future development, to have them attach directly to the verb form, and voilà, conjugation. ---------------------------- *but surely you can have other time indicators that would be more truly adverbial-- e.g. "We will go" vs. "we will go tomorrow". Or is it that in the present state of the language, "tomorrow" would simply replace the little CV "tense" marker?? Messages in this topic (13) ________________________________________________________________________ 1e. Re: The evolution of an irregular copula Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com Date: Sun Nov 7, 2010 4:41 pm ((PST)) On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 3:45 PM, Roger Mills <romi...@yahoo.com> wrote: ...snip... >> I still do not >> understand why, when the copula is dropped, those words >> become regarded as an irregular copula. Why hasn't the >> language >> simply joined the many others that have a 'zero copula'? >> > Hear hear. Furthermore, why not simply say that predicative adjectives behave > like (or > indeed _are_) verbs? And if the little X words (Tense?) are indeed tense > indicators (in > addition to being time indicators*) why not juxtapose them directly after the > Verb/Adj > form? That would be a good way, in some future development, to have them > attach > directly to the verb form, and voilà, conjugation. > ---------------------------- > *but surely you can have other time indicators that would be more truly > adverbial-- e.g. > "We will go" vs. "we will go tomorrow". Or is it that in the present state of > the > language, "tomorrow" would simply replace the little CV "tense" marker?? If this were a conventional conlang being designed int he conventional way I might be able to answer those questions. But my methodology so far is to translate whatever sentences come next in the text I selected before beginning the project. As a consequence, the only things I know how to do are things that have already been encountered in those sentences. I don't look ahead. So the question "How would conlang-X do ..." can only be answered AFTER a sentence of that type has been encountered and translated. Before encountering such a sentence I can only say "I don't know." I do like the possibility that the predicates are verb-ish, and that the particles could become conjugations. On a slightly related tangent: I'm already feeling the need to introduce case endings for accusative pronouns. It's not some intellectual idea that I "ought to" do so, but rather a semi-conscious visceral feeling of wrongness about pronouns in accusative roles, a feeling of something missing that seems to be begging for case marking. --gary Messages in this topic (13) ________________________________________________________________________ 1f. Re: The evolution of an irregular copula Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com Date: Sun Nov 7, 2010 11:50 pm ((PST)) On 07/11/2010 21:16, Gary Shannon wrote: [snip] > > A this point in the evolution of the language I should > only be descriptive and not prescriptive. The language is > going through a lot of changes very rapidly, due to the > 30-day deadline and my desire to just "let it happen" > without any analytical thought or planning. I think this is spot on. This is an interesting way of evolving a conlang and I think "just let it happen" is the right approach. [snip] > > After the 30-days of un-planned translation, THEN I will > look back on the result and parse the sentences to see if > I can extract a consistent grammar. Yep - and you'll probably be surprised at one or two of the developments that have taken place :) ------------------------------------------------------- On 07/11/2010 23:45, Roger Mills wrote: > --- On Sun, 11/7/10, R A Brown<r...@carolandray.plus.com> > wrote: [snip] >> If we're dealing with a copula then we do not have an >> object. The order is Complement-X-Subject. > > Translating my ex. into Ray, my "Tense" is his "X" >> >> The question is what the X is. > > Perhaps I'm wrong in calling it "tense"? It could be a particle marking tense. Such particles are common enough in creoles. >> I still do not understand why, when the copula is >> dropped, those words become regarded as an irregular >> copula. Why hasn't the language simply joined the many >> others that have a 'zero copula'? >> > Hear hear. Furthermore, why not simply say that > predicative adjectives behave like (or indeed _are_) > verbs? Yep - stative verbs, like in Chines & Japanese other langs. Also, one has to bear in mind that even if a language does have a copula, it need not be a verb. See Thomas Payne, "Describing Morphosyntax", pages 114 and following. Indeed, Payne's book is subtitled "A guide for field linguists." If Gary waits until the end of the 30 days before trying to extract a consistent grammar, he will, in effect, be working like a field linguist who encounters a hitherto unknown language. He may find Thomas Payne's book a useful tool :) -- Ray ================================== http://www.carolandray.plus.com ================================== "Ein Kopf, der auf seine eigene Kosten denkt, wird immer Eingriffe in die Sprache thun." [J.G. Hamann, 1760] "A mind that thinks at its own expense will always interfere with language". Messages in this topic (13) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 2a. 30-Day Conlang: Day Seven Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com Date: Sun Nov 7, 2010 1:22 pm ((PST)) Day seven marks the completion of 798 words of translation out of 2198, or 36%. At this rate of 114 words per day I should complete the translation by day 20, leaving 10 days for editing and revising the earlier translations. Then begins the fun of parsing the sentences of the translation and seeing if a consistent grammar has emerged, and what that grammar looks like. I'm not sure if the grammar has begun to stabilize yet. It still seems to me that some sentences have the wrong structure and word order. Hopefully, as I do more translations the sentence structure will become more consistent so that by the end of the project I can re-translate the poorly structured sentences and arrive at a consistent grammar and syntax. http://fiziwig.com/conlang/thirty_day.html --gary Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ 2b. Re: 30-Day Conlang: Day Seven Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com Date: Sun Nov 7, 2010 3:54 pm ((PST)) --- On Sun, 11/7/10, Gary Shannon <fizi...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm not sure if the grammar has begun to stabilize yet. It > still seems > to me that some sentences have the wrong structure and word > order. > Hopefully, as I do more translations the sentence structure > will > become more consistent so that by the end of the project I > can > re-translate the poorly structured sentences and arrive at > a > consistent grammar and syntax. Maybe some of the sentences with "wrong" structure are "stylistic variants"? :-)) Certainly in English a narrative consisting entirely of S -V - O sentences is usually viewed as rather uninspired. > > http://fiziwig.com/conlang/thirty_day.html > > --gary > Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ 2c. Re: 30-Day Conlang: Day Seven Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com Date: Sun Nov 7, 2010 10:30 pm ((PST)) Out of curiosity I tried parsing some of my translated sentences. I built parse trees in a way that seems to make sense, and the most recent sentences seem to parse in a consistent way. The earlier sentence, however, don't parse so neatly. And in fact some of the very earliest sentences end up with a very ugly parse tree that, intuitively, just can't possibly be right. This seems to indicate that what started out as random and chaotic is beginning to become orderly. A consistent grammar is emerging. Of course this means the first few days worth of translation will have to be re-done, but I expected that from the beginning. I included some parse trees at the very bottom of the web page: http://fiziwig.com/conlang/thirty_day.html --gary On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 3:51 PM, Roger Mills <romi...@yahoo.com> wrote: > --- On Sun, 11/7/10, Gary Shannon <fizi...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> I'm not sure if the grammar has begun to stabilize yet. It >> still seems >> to me that some sentences have the wrong structure and word >> order. >> Hopefully, as I do more translations the sentence structure >> will >> become more consistent so that by the end of the project I >> can >> re-translate the poorly structured sentences and arrive at >> a >> consistent grammar and syntax. > > Maybe some of the sentences with "wrong" structure are "stylistic variants"? > :-)) Certainly in English a narrative consisting entirely of S -V - O > sentences is usually viewed as rather uninspired. >> >> http://fiziwig.com/conlang/thirty_day.html >> >> --gary >> > > > > Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 3a. Ejective distributions Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" pwd...@gmail.com Date: Sun Nov 7, 2010 4:44 pm ((PST)) I've been looking around for this, but haven't found much on it. What is the usual distribution of ejective consonants? I'd like to have a conlang with ejective stops (at least /k'/ and maybe /t'/), but no voiced consonants. Is that plausible? And is it plausible to have /k'/ /t'/ /s'/ but no other ejectives? I know /p'/ is pretty uncommon. -- I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; garlands from window to window; golden chains from star to star, and I dance. --Arthur Rimbaud Messages in this topic (7) ________________________________________________________________________ 3b. Re: Ejective distributions Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" mbout...@nd.edu Date: Sun Nov 7, 2010 5:00 pm ((PST)) from wiki: > In strict, technical terms, ejectives are glottalic > egressive<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiation_%28phonetics%29>consonants. > The most common ejective is > [kʼ], not because it is easier to produce than other ejectives like [tʼ]or > [pʼ] (it isn't) but because the auditory distinction between [kʼ] and [k]is > greater than with other ejectives and voiceless consonants of the same > place of > articulation.[2]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ejective_consonant#cite_note-ReferenceA-1>In > proportion to the frequency of uvular > consonants <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uvular_consonant>, [qʼ] is even > more common, as would be expected from the very small oral cavity used to > pronounce a voiceless uvular > plosive<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_uvular_plosive> > .[*citation needed<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed> > *] [pʼ], on the other hand, is quite rare. This is the opposite pattern to > what is found in the implosive > consonants<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implosive_consonant>, > in which the bilabial is common and the velar is > rare.[3]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ejective_consonant#cite_note-2>Ejective > fricatives are rare for presumably the same reason: with the air > escaping from the mouth while the pressure is being raised, like inflating a > leaky bicycle tire, it is harder to distinguish the resulting sound as > salient as a [kʼ]. > this seems like a pretty accurate representation, at least as far as the natlangs i have experience in, and the reasoning seems sound. akkadian, like proto-semitic before it, had /k'/, /t'/, and /s'/ with no other ejectives. best of luck with the conlang! matt On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 7:35 PM, Patrick Dunn <pwd...@gmail.com> wrote: > I've been looking around for this, but haven't found much on it. > > What is the usual distribution of ejective consonants? I'd like to have a > conlang with ejective stops (at least /k'/ and maybe /t'/), but no voiced > consonants. Is that plausible? And is it plausible to have /k'/ /t'/ /s'/ > but no other ejectives? I know /p'/ is pretty uncommon. > > > > -- > I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; garlands from window to > window; golden chains from star to star, and I dance. --Arthur Rimbaud > Messages in this topic (7) ________________________________________________________________________ 3c. Re: Ejective distributions Posted by: "Wm Annis" wm.an...@gmail.com Date: Sun Nov 7, 2010 5:03 pm ((PST)) On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 6:35 PM, Patrick Dunn <pwd...@gmail.com> wrote: > What is the usual distribution of ejective consonants? I'd like to have a > conlang with ejective stops (at least /k'/ and maybe /t'/), but no voiced > consonants. Is that plausible? Very very common. Many Athabascan languages, as well as plenty of languages in California (of various families) and the Pacific Northwest often have plain vs. ejective stops, or a three-way, plain, aspirated and ejective series. > And is it plausible to have > /k'/ /t'/ /s'/ > but no other ejectives? I know /p'/ is pretty uncommon. If you have /s'/ I expect other fricatives to get the same treatment (/x'/, say see Tlingit, for example). Ejective fricatives aren't especially *common*, but so long as the ejective stops are already there, I can't think of any reason for /s'/ to be problematic. -- William S. Annis www.aoidoi.org www.scholiastae.org Messages in this topic (7) ________________________________________________________________________ 3d. Re: Ejective distributions Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com Date: Sun Nov 7, 2010 5:43 pm ((PST)) On Sun, 7 Nov 2010 19:58:28 -0500, Matthew Boutilier <mbout...@nd.edu> wrote: >akkadian, like proto-semitic before it, had /k'/, /t'/, and /s'/ with no >other ejectives. By the conventional interpretation, anyway. It's my understanding that there's a better case that, for a lot of the languages written in cuneiform, what are conventionally transcribed as <s z s-underdot s-hachek> and understood as /s z s_(>,?\) S/ should better be /ts dz ts_> s/ -- this propagates back to the reconstruction of Proto-Semitic, too. By this reconstruction they both had /k_> t_> ts_>/ and PSem also /(t)T_> (t)K_>/, which is a more normal thing. In any case, /k_> t_> s_>/ as ejective system seems quite reasonable to me. It would be surprising to me if your lang has /ts/, as I'd expect the /s_>/ to have come from /ts_>/ and then /ts/ should have lost its stopping in parallel. But even this isn't impossible; Tlingit fricated a whole lot of its ejectives across all POAs (I forget the conditions, or whether it's thought conditions existed), but did nothing comparable to its plain stops. Alex Messages in this topic (7) ________________________________________________________________________ 3e. Re: Ejective distributions Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" mbout...@nd.edu Date: Sun Nov 7, 2010 6:23 pm ((PST)) > > It's my understanding that > there's a better case that, for a lot of the languages written in > cuneiform, > what are conventionally transcribed as <s z s-underdot s-hachek> and > understood as /s z s_(>,?\) S/ should better be /ts dz ts_> s/ -- this > propagates back to the reconstruction of Proto-Semitic, too. > really? hmm, interesting, i hadn't heard about that. as far as i know, neither /ts/ nor /dz/ is reconstructed in proto-semitic. out of curiosity, do you have a source for this that i can check out? matt On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 8:41 PM, Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, 7 Nov 2010 19:58:28 -0500, Matthew Boutilier <mbout...@nd.edu> > wrote: > > >akkadian, like proto-semitic before it, had /k'/, /t'/, and /s'/ with no > >other ejectives. > > By the conventional interpretation, anyway. It's my understanding that > there's a better case that, for a lot of the languages written in > cuneiform, > what are conventionally transcribed as <s z s-underdot s-hachek> and > understood as /s z s_(>,?\) S/ should better be /ts dz ts_> s/ -- this > propagates back to the reconstruction of Proto-Semitic, too. By this > reconstruction they both had /k_> t_> ts_>/ and PSem also /(t)T_> (t)K_>/, > which is a more normal thing. > > In any case, /k_> t_> s_>/ as ejective system seems quite reasonable to me. > It would be surprising to me if your lang has /ts/, as I'd expect the > /s_>/ > to have come from /ts_>/ and then /ts/ should have lost its stopping in > parallel. But even this isn't impossible; Tlingit fricated a whole lot of > its ejectives across all POAs (I forget the conditions, or whether it's > thought conditions existed), but did nothing comparable to its plain stops. > > Alex > Messages in this topic (7) ________________________________________________________________________ 3f. Re: Ejective distributions Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com Date: Sun Nov 7, 2010 8:53 pm ((PST)) On Sun, 7 Nov 2010 21:20:33 -0500, Matthew Boutilier <mbout...@nd.edu> wrote: >> >> It's my understanding that >> there's a better case that, for a lot of the languages written in >> cuneiform, >> what are conventionally transcribed as <s z s-underdot s-hachek> and >> understood as /s z s_(>,?\) S/ should better be /ts dz ts_> s/ -- this >> propagates back to the reconstruction of Proto-Semitic, too. >> > >really? hmm, interesting, i hadn't heard about that. as far as i know, >neither /ts/ nor /dz/ is reconstructed in proto-semitic. out of curiosity, >do you have a source for this that i can check out? I don't remember where I first heard it. At any rate, as a starting point, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Semitic#Fricatives delivers pp. 32--33 of Dolgopolsky, Aron (1999). From Proto-Semitic to Hebrew. Milan: Centro Studi Camito-Semitici di Milano. An "Alice Faber (1981)" is also mentioned, but I don't know what work that is. Alex Messages in this topic (7) ________________________________________________________________________ 3g. Re: Ejective distributions Posted by: "David McCann" da...@polymathy.plus.com Date: Mon Nov 8, 2010 4:33 am ((PST)) On Sun, 2010-11-07 at 21:20 -0500, Matthew Boutilier wrote: > really? hmm, interesting, i hadn't heard about that. as far as i know, > neither /ts/ nor /dz/ is reconstructed in proto-semitic. out of curiosity, > do you have a source for this that i can check out? The reconstruction of ProtoSemitic was done in the 19th century on the basis of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. Study of the South Semitic languages, and of the AfroAsiatic languages, shows that the original reconstruction had the right number of phonemes but the wrong values: e.g. /Å¡ s Å/ for /s c ɬ/. A good source is the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages. Most Semiticists keep the old transcription, on the grounds that otherwise when someone wrote "s" they'd be wondering if they were a modernist and meant the old "Å¡" or a traditionalist and meant the new "c"! AfroAsiatic studies seems to use the new version, just to make life more interesting. Messages in this topic (7) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/ <*> Your email settings: Digest Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: conlang-nor...@yahoogroups.com conlang-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: conlang-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------