There are 20 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Help CONLANG movie get distribution!
From: Sai
2a. Re: Conlangs based on Endangered/Dead Languages
From: Matthew Martin
2b. Re: Conlangs based on Endangered/Dead Languages
From: Mechthild Czapp
2c. Re: Conlangs based on Endangered/Dead Languages
From: R A Brown
3a. Re: Case Inflection Development
From: Gary Shannon
3b. Re: Case Inflection Development
From: Samuel Stutter
3c. Re: Case Inflection Development
From: Andreas Johansson
3d. Re: Case Inflection Development
From: Gary Shannon
3e. Re: Case Inflection Development
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
4.1. Re: An engelang to minimize or contain abstractness
From: maikxlx
4.2. Re: An engelang to minimize or contain abstractness
From: And Rosta
4.3. Re: An engelang to minimize or contain abstractness
From: maikxlx
4.4. Re: An engelang to minimize or contain abstractness
From: And Rosta
5a. Re: "Best" way to write a complete description of a language
From: Matthew Martin
6a. /S/ and /s`/ - language universals
From: Matthew Boutilier
6b. Re: /S/ and /s`/ - language universals
From: Alex Fink
7a. Re: OT: On the subject of dodgy looking emails...
From: taliesin the storyteller
7b. Re: OT: On the subject of dodgy looking emails...
From: Eugene Oh
7c. Re: OT: On the subject of dodgy looking emails...
From: Tristan Plumb
7d. Re: OT: On the subject of dodgy looking emails...
From: Sai
Messages
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1. Help CONLANG movie get distribution!
Posted by: "Sai" s...@saizai.com
Date: Sun Oct 17, 2010 8:37 am ((PDT))
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marta Masferrer <masfer...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 10:09 AM
Subject: Help CONLANG get distribution!
Dear Conlang Cast, Crew, Friends, and Supporters!
We need your help to acquire the full distribution rights to CONLANG
so we can make it available to fans and language creation enthusiasts
everywhere!
What can you do?
We have launched a fund-raising effort on KICKSTARTER and need you to
spread the word. Share our campaign via Facebook, Twitter, Email,
Tumblr... or just old fashion word of mouth.
For a small pledge of $15-$20, your friends and families can have a
special limited edition DVD of the film loaded with lots of cool
features.
Please click on this link for more information and to view a clip from
the movie!
http://kck.st/cws7AW
Much Love,
Marta and Baldvin
Messages in this topic (1)
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2a. Re: Conlangs based on Endangered/Dead Languages
Posted by: "Matthew Martin" matthewdeanmar...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Oct 17, 2010 8:47 am ((PDT))
>Re: Amerind Auxlang
Well, auxlangs in general are OT here. I had in mind writing and promoting a
conlang based on a dead or moribund language as a way to reclaim that way
of viewing of the world for *somone*, not necessarily the genetic descendants
of the original speakers or trying to create intertribal peace a-la-Esperanto.
Although it would make for an awesome Linguistics-Sci-Fi novel, to imagine a
world where Columbus Day never happened and Zamenhof was a Cree Indian.
>Another possibility would be to revive Timucua, which is not fiendishly
difficult and was reasonably well documented by Spanish missionaries.
Thanks for the pointer to this language! The existing Timucua corpus isn't
completely parsed yet-- i.e. not everyone is sure why the said things that way
in the corpus. I suppose a reference grammar for Timucua would have to
choose between the hard task of figuring out what the Timucuan corpus really
represents vs artistically filling in the gaps with pure fiction. Since it is
an
isolate (yet somehow has most the the features of other SE indian languages),
one couldn't automatically decide to fill in the gaps with loans from similar
languages.
>re: Ethics of using a moribund language as material for a conlang
Well with a Klingon derivative, I suppose one could ask the KLI or Paramount
for permission. Who the heck might one ask permission to create a Cherokee,
Navajo or Wampanoag derivative?
I think it would be equally hard to write a truly offensive language and to
write an a posteriori language that offends no one. Short of writing something
explicitly racist, or obtusely judgmental, how offensive can a conlang
reference grammar and dictionary be? On the other hand, I'm sure some
French speakers get really upset when the discover French-derivative
conlangs.
If a conlang who wants to "do the right thing" restricts themselves to dead
languages with no known living descendent, wouldn't they be really, really
restricting the pool of languages they're working with? I would guess the
moribund ones are better documented, more likely to have audio-recordings,
etc. Maybe the advice here is to not be rude when using a language as source
material for a conlang.
Matthew Martin
Messages in this topic (6)
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2b. Re: Conlangs based on Endangered/Dead Languages
Posted by: "Mechthild Czapp" 0zu...@gmx.de
Date: Sun Oct 17, 2010 5:42 pm ((PDT))
-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Sun, 17 Oct 2010 11:45:08 -0400
> Von: Matthew Martin <matthewdeanmar...@gmail.com>
> An: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Betreff: Re: Conlangs based on Endangered/Dead Languages
> I think it would be equally hard to write a truly offensive language and
> to
> write an a posteriori language that offends no one. Short of writing
> something
> explicitly racist, or obtusely judgmental, how offensive can a conlang
> reference grammar and dictionary be? On the other hand, I'm sure some
> French speakers get really upset when the discover French-derivative
> conlangs.
Oh... I once closed a language description thinking that the inventor was a
<EXPLETIE> and a <EXPLETIVE> <EXPLETIVE> who <BEEEEP>. And that language was a
priori. It was the language aUI and Weilgart translated 'female' as yv which
means not-active. I am not a radical feminist, but that really bugged me
(enough to blog about it). That was the one time, I thought that an a priori
language was truely and utterly offensive.
So yeah, it does happen...
--
Sanja'xen mi'lanja'kynha ,mi'la'ohix'ta jilih, nka.
My life would be easy if it was not so hard!
GMX DSL Doppel-Flat ab 19,99 €/mtl.! Jetzt auch mit
gratis Notebook-Flat! http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/dsl
Messages in this topic (6)
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2c. Re: Conlangs based on Endangered/Dead Languages
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Mon Oct 18, 2010 12:20 am ((PDT))
On 18/10/2010 01:39, Mechthild Czapp wrote:
[snip]
>
> Oh... I once closed a language description thinking that
> the inventor was a<EXPLETIE> and a<EXPLETIVE>
> <EXPLETIVE> who<BEEEEP>. And that language was a priori.
> It was the language aUI and Weilgart translated 'female'
> as yv which means not-active.
Good grief! On what planet does Wellgart live?
I've met active females a-plenty and come across some pretty
inactive males during my lifetime :)
--
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 (6)
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3a. Re: Case Inflection Development
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Oct 17, 2010 9:45 am ((PDT))
Disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing academic about the subject and
can only contribute wild guesses.
That said, I've always felt that the English genitive marker ('s) is a
contraction of "his" as in "John his dog..." => "John's dog...". I
like this theory even it it's not true. :) (Just like I like my theory
about verb past tense endings being derived from "did", as in "John
turn did" => "John turned.")
--gary
On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 4:14 AM, Daniel Prohaska
<dan...@ryan-prohaska.com> wrote:
> Other parts of speech may be involved, too, such as verb in an SOV or OSV
> language. Consider a sentence such as:
>
> Man tree see. Man tree climb.
>
> This can be contracted to:
>
> Man tree-see climb.
>
> see eventually becomes a marker for the object, and the meaning shifts from
> a man sees a tree and climbs it to a man climbs a tree.
>
> Dan
Messages in this topic (14)
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3b. Re: Case Inflection Development
Posted by: "Samuel Stutter" sam.stut...@student.manchester.ac.uk
Date: Sun Oct 17, 2010 10:08 am ((PDT))
Um... sorry, Gary, but according to Bruce Mitchell (1998), it isn't
true. The Old English case system has "es" as the genitive suffix. The
genitive form of "he" is "his", whereas the genitive of "mann" is
"mannes" ("þæs mannes dohtor")
On 17 Oct 2010, at 17:42, Gary Shannon wrote:
> Disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing academic about the subject and
> can only contribute wild guesses.
>
> That said, I've always felt that the English genitive marker ('s) is a
> contraction of "his" as in "John his dog..." => "John's dog...". I
> like this theory even it it's not true. :) (Just like I like my theory
> about verb past tense endings being derived from "did", as in "John
> turn did" => "John turned.")
>
> --gary
>
> On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 4:14 AM, Daniel Prohaska
> <dan...@ryan-prohaska.com> wrote:
>> Other parts of speech may be involved, too, such as verb in an SOV
>> or OSV language. Consider a sentence such as:
>>
>> Man tree see. Man tree climb.
>>
>> This can be contracted to:
>>
>> Man tree-see climb.
>>
>> see eventually becomes a marker for the object, and the meaning
>> shifts from a man sees a tree and climbs it to a man climbs a
>> tree.
>>
>> Dan
Messages in this topic (14)
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3c. Re: Case Inflection Development
Posted by: "Andreas Johansson" andre...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Oct 17, 2010 10:22 am ((PDT))
On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 6:42 PM, Gary Shannon <fizi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing academic about the subject and
> can only contribute wild guesses.
>
> That said, I've always felt that the English genitive marker ('s) is a
> contraction of "his" as in "John his dog..." => "John's dog...". I
> like this theory even it it's not true. :) (Just like I like my theory
> about verb past tense endings being derived from "did", as in "John
> turn did" => "John turned.")
Your second theory is approximately true - the -d (or -t, as in
"kept") of Germanic pasts is derived from a form of the verb "to do".
The incorporation happened long before any Germanic-speaker bore the
name John, however.
--
Andreas Johansson
Why can't you be a non-conformist just like everybody else?
Messages in this topic (14)
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3d. Re: Case Inflection Development
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Oct 17, 2010 6:08 pm ((PDT))
Thanks for the info. However, since I am a non-academic I have the
freedom to believe whatever thing is the most fun to believe. ;-)
--gary
On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 10:06 AM, Samuel Stutter
<sam.stut...@student.manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
> Um... sorry, Gary, but according to Bruce Mitchell (1998), it isn't true.
> The Old English case system has "es" as the genitive suffix. The genitive
> form of "he" is "his", whereas the genitive of "mann" is "mannes" ("þæs
> mannes dohtor")
>
> On 17 Oct 2010, at 17:42, Gary Shannon wrote:
>
>> Disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing academic about the subject and
>> can only contribute wild guesses.
>>
>> That said, I've always felt that the English genitive marker ('s) is a
>> contraction of "his" as in "John his dog..." => "John's dog...". I
>> like this theory even it it's not true. :) (Just like I like my theory
>> about verb past tense endings being derived from "did", as in "John
>> turn did" => "John turned.")
>>
>> --gary
>>
>> On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 4:14 AM, Daniel Prohaska
>> <dan...@ryan-prohaska.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Other parts of speech may be involved, too, such as verb in an SOV or OSV
>>> language. Consider a sentence such as:
>>>
>>> Man tree see. Man tree climb.
>>>
>>> This can be contracted to:
>>>
>>> Man tree-see climb.
>>>
>>> see eventually becomes a marker for the object, and the meaning shifts
>>> from a man sees a tree and climbs it to a man climbs a tree.
>>>
>>> Dan
>
Messages in this topic (14)
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3e. Re: Case Inflection Development
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Oct 18, 2010 4:03 am ((PDT))
On 17 October 2010 18:42, Gary Shannon <fizi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing academic about the subject and
> can only contribute wild guesses.
>
> That said, I've always felt that the English genitive marker ('s) is a
> contraction of "his" as in "John his dog..." => "John's dog...".
It would only work if the genitive of feminine nouns was 'r ("Mary her dog"
=> *"Mary'r dog"). An idea for Future English? :P
That said, such constructions are actually quite a common way to mark
possession in various languages, and could easily evolve into actual
genitives. The funny thing is, although English doesn't have this
construction, its cousin Dutch does. "Jan z'n hond" is a perfectly correct
way to translate "John's dog" and literally does mean "John his dog". And
indeed, feminine nouns use the feminine possessive: "Marie d'r hond". In
Dutch, this way of forming genitive constructions competes with the Saxon
genitive (which is on its way out: "Jans hond" is possible, but feels
old-fashioned and stilted) and noun complements using the preposition "van":
of ("de hond van Jan" is allowed, but lacks punch. "van" is normally only
used when the possessor is a long noun phrase).
> I
> like this theory even it it's not true. :) (Just like I like my theory
> about verb past tense endings being derived from "did", as in "John
> turn did" => "John turned.")
>
>
That's a fun one! :)
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (14)
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4.1. Re: An engelang to minimize or contain abstractness
Posted by: "maikxlx" maik...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Oct 17, 2010 10:40 am ((PDT))
On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 2:49 AM, maikxlx <maik...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> I'm not sure if anyone would argue that compositional structures of
>> sublexical forms (i.e. within the phonological word) are necessarily more
>> compact than compositional structures of lexical forms. But there is indeed
>> what I think of as the "Ithkuil effect": provided you have a closed
>> combinatorial system at the level of meaning (i.e. where the combinatorial
>> elements belong to closed classes) then you can make it maximally compact at
>> the level of form. Bound (combinatorially restricted) forms will be more
>> compact. In derivational morphology there are typically bound forms
>> expressing members of a closed class of meanings. Hence anything that
>> delivers the Ithkuil effect will be a kind of derivational morphology.
>>
>> --And.
>>
>
> I can't say that I understand Ithkuil at all well, and so I could well be
> wrong, but I am not sure that anything like Ithkuil will be maximally
> compact. It seems to me that such a hyperfusional morphology -- one which
> grammaticalizes just about everything under the sun, producing countless
> rarely-used permutations each assigning an obscure meaning to one possible
> form in word-space -- will necessarily be suboptimal compactnesswise. To be
> honest, I think that the real reason that Ithkuil pulls off a semblance of
> compactness is that it more-or-less uses the entire IPA chart, sans clicks,
> as a phoneme inventory. This is not to knock the language, which is totally
> brilliant and interesting to study; I just doubt that it's maximally
> compact.
>
After reflecting on this, I would like to clarify that I am in no way
disputing Ithkuil's general capability to encode a relatively complex
meaning into a very compact form. In fact it's probable that, given an
arbitrary complex meaning X, Ithkuil is maximally compact compared to any
other potentially human-speakable conlang.
I did mean to point out, though, that the most frequently intended, often
logically simpler meanings are not assigned forms any shorter than the
rarely intended, often logically complex ones. So while Ithkuil makes
countless maximally compact individual utterances possible, I doubt whether
a longer text of general prose would be maximally compact.
Messages in this topic (32)
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4.2. Re: An engelang to minimize or contain abstractness
Posted by: "And Rosta" and.ro...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Oct 17, 2010 3:36 pm ((PDT))
maikxlx, On 17/10/2010 07:49:
> On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 7:13 AM, And Rosta<and.ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> The thoughtful responses my message received made me attempt to recast my
>> question into a more coherent form.
>>
>> One of my questions was "Why have (full) compositionality of form without
>> (full) compositionality of meaning?". The answer given to that is
>> "learnability". That seems right.
>>
> Yes, but I would describe "(full) compositionality of form" simply as
> self-segregation, and "(full) compositionality of meaning" as Frege's
> Principle of Compositionality or "fregean-ness" for short.
I don't understand. Self-segregation means that morphme boundaries can be
unambiguously inserted on the basis of the shape of the phonological string.
Full compositionality of form means that the whole form consists exhaustively
of morphemes that are structured together to form the whole.
>> Another question (more tacit in my original) is "Why have parallel
>> compositionality of form and meaning not only within the sentence but also
>> within the phonological word?". The answer given to that is "compactness".
>
>
> I would offer a second possible answer. Bound and free fregean forms can
> also be used to affect scope and grouping in a precise way. As an example,
> in my own LL, which is head-final and left-grouping, the word {blêti} has a
> meaning "something/someone able to be a Y"; the preceding noun phrase (which
> may be a bare noun) is a complement that specifies the "Y":
[...]
Your second possible answer seems more an answer to the question "If you have
parallel compositionality of form and meaning not only within the sentence but
also within the phonological word, what uses can this be put to?" Given just
the problem of encoding syntactic grouping, I don't think you'd argue that
morphology is the solution that that naturally leads to.
>> I'm not sure if anyone would argue that compositional structures of
>> sublexical forms (i.e. within the phonological word) are necessarily more
>> compact than compositional structures of lexical forms. But there is indeed
>> what I think of as the "Ithkuil effect": provided you have a closed
>> combinatorial system at the level of meaning (i.e. where the combinatorial
>> elements belong to closed classes) then you can make it maximally compact at
>> the level of form. Bound (combinatorially restricted) forms will be more
>> compact. In derivational morphology there are typically bound forms
>> expressing members of a closed class of meanings. Hence anything that
>> delivers the Ithkuil effect will be a kind of derivational morphology.
>
> I can't say that I understand Ithkuil at all well, and so I could well be
> wrong, but I am not sure that anything like Ithkuil will be maximally
> compact. It seems to me that such a hyperfusional morphology -- one which
> grammaticalizes just about everything under the sun, producing countless
> rarely-used permutations each assigning an obscure meaning to one possible
> form in word-space -- will necessarily be suboptimal compactnesswise. To be
> honest, I think that the real reason that Ithkuil pulls off a semblance of
> compactness is that it more-or-less uses the entire IPA chart, sans clicks,
> as a phoneme inventory. This is not to knock the language, which is totally
> brilliant and interesting to study; I just doubt that it's maximally
> compact.
&
> After reflecting on this, I would like to clarify that I am in no way
> disputing Ithkuil's general capability to encode a relatively complex
> meaning into a very compact form. In fact it's probable that, given an
> arbitrary complex meaning X, Ithkuil is maximally compact compared to any
> other potentially human-speakable conlang.
>
> I did mean to point out, though, that the most frequently intended, often
> logically simpler meanings are not assigned forms any shorter than the
> rarely intended, often logically complex ones. So while Ithkuil makes
> countless maximally compact individual utterances possible, I doubt whether
> a longer text of general prose would be maximally compact.
Ithkuil has a very high ratio of meaning to form, and it achieves that by
putting the meanings in closed classes. The reason why Ithkuil might not be so
compact if it had to express the content of some random text (tho I have little
idea how compact it would in fact be) is that closed class meaning systems are
not suitable for random text. When you've got a closed class meaning system,
you express what the system allows you to express.
But, as I suspect you may yourself have been thinking, one might have a hybrid
system that puts high frequency meanings into a closed class and encodes them
morphologically compactly, and leaves the rest to syntax. I'm skeptical about
how well that could work, but perhaps the skepticism is unwarranted. My
Livagian does that a bit, but not in any interesting nontrivial way; it just
has clitic forms of some common words.
--And.
Messages in this topic (32)
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4.3. Re: An engelang to minimize or contain abstractness
Posted by: "maikxlx" maik...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Oct 17, 2010 9:18 pm ((PDT))
On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 6:33 PM, And Rosta <and.ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> maikxlx, On 17/10/2010 07:49:
>
> On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 7:13 AM, And Rosta<and.ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The thoughtful responses my message received made me attempt to recast my
>>> question into a more coherent form.
>>>
>>> One of my questions was "Why have (full) compositionality of form without
>>> (full) compositionality of meaning?". The answer given to that is
>>> "learnability". That seems right.
>>>
>>> Yes, but I would describe "(full) compositionality of form" simply as
>> self-segregation, and "(full) compositionality of meaning" as Frege's
>> Principle of Compositionality or "fregean-ness" for short.
>>
>
> I don't understand. Self-segregation means that morphme boundaries can be
> unambiguously inserted on the basis of the shape of the phonological string.
> Full compositionality of form means that the whole form consists
> exhaustively of morphemes that are structured together to form the whole.
>
>
Sorry, I assumed that the qualified term "_full_ compositionality of form"
meant something to the effect of "_reversable/transparent_ compositionality
of form" (thus self-segregating), because I couldn't grok what the implied
alternate term, "_partial_ compositionality of form", would refer to. It
seems to me that a form is either compositional or non-compositional i.e.
basic.
> [...]
>
> Your second possible answer seems more an answer to the question "If you
> have parallel compositionality of form and meaning not only within the
> sentence but also within the phonological word, what uses can this be put
> to?" Given just the problem of encoding syntactic grouping, I don't think
> you'd argue that morphology is the solution that that naturally leads to.
>
>
Well, this may be a matter of style and taste. You don't want parallel
compositionality straddling the morphology/syntax boundary. The way I
looked at it: If there is need for a particle that governs exactly one word,
and always appears clitic-like adjacent to the word it governs, and produces
an expression that itself belongs to a syntactic category that contains
phonological words, shouldn't we describe that expression as a derived
phonological word? Isn't that what it really is?
One detail that I didn't mention in my example above is that if you wrote
all stems and suffixes e.g. {bellòki matrèbli} as separate words e.g. {bello
ki matre bli}, it would be pronounced the same and you'd be little worse for
the wear. So in a way, I guess I implicitly agree with your point. I just
don't like the look of swarms of tiny words.
>
> Ithkuil has a very high ratio of meaning to form, and it achieves that by
> putting the meanings in closed classes. The reason why Ithkuil might not be
> so compact if it had to express the content of some random text (tho I have
> little idea how compact it would in fact be) is that closed class meaning
> systems are not suitable for random text. When you've got a closed class
> meaning system, you express what the system allows you to express.
>
> But, as I suspect you may yourself have been thinking, one might have a
> hybrid system that puts high frequency meanings into a closed class and
> encodes them morphologically compactly, and leaves the rest to syntax. I'm
> skeptical about how well that could work, but perhaps the skepticism is
> unwarranted. My Livagian does that a bit, but not in any interesting
> nontrivial way; it just has clitic forms of some common words.
>
> --And.
>
>
As you can probably tell from my examples, I am not striving for compactness
at the moment. In fact, I've fleshed out the lexicon with a lot of
a-posteriori stuff (gradually building a nice list of basic expressions as I
go) so I can work on the syntax. However, yes I have thought about it,
and I agree that if compactness is the goal then a well designed morphology
with closed class of compact, high-frequency markers is a promising route.
Messages in this topic (32)
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4.4. Re: An engelang to minimize or contain abstractness
Posted by: "And Rosta" and.ro...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Oct 18, 2010 6:29 am ((PDT))
maikxlx, On 18/10/2010 05:16:
> On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 6:33 PM, And Rosta<and.ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, I assumed that the qualified term "_full_ compositionality of form"
> meant something to the effect of "_reversable/transparent_ compositionality
> of form" (thus self-segregating), because I couldn't grok what the implied
> alternate term, "_partial_ compositionality of form", would refer to. It
> seems to me that a form is either compositional or non-compositional i.e.
> basic.
Partial compositionality might look like, say, nor-th, sou-th, ea-st, we-st.
>> Your second possible answer seems more an answer to the question "If you
>> have parallel compositionality of form and meaning not only within the
>> sentence but also within the phonological word, what uses can this be put
>> to?" Given just the problem of encoding syntactic grouping, I don't think
>> you'd argue that morphology is the solution that that naturally leads to.
>
> Well, this may be a matter of style and taste. You don't want parallel
> compositionality straddling the morphology/syntax boundary.
It's not really that I don't want it to, it's more that, since it complicates
the grammar, I don't want it to unless there's a good reason for it to.
>> Ithkuil has a very high ratio of meaning to form, and it achieves that by
>> putting the meanings in closed classes. The reason why Ithkuil might not be
>> so compact if it had to express the content of some random text (tho I have
>> little idea how compact it would in fact be) is that closed class meaning
>> systems are not suitable for random text. When you've got a closed class
>> meaning system, you express what the system allows you to express.
>>
>> But, as I suspect you may yourself have been thinking, one might have a
>> hybrid system that puts high frequency meanings into a closed class and
>> encodes them morphologically compactly, and leaves the rest to syntax. I'm
>> skeptical about how well that could work, but perhaps the skepticism is
>> unwarranted. My Livagian does that a bit, but not in any interesting
>> nontrivial way; it just has clitic forms of some common words.
>
> As you can probably tell from my examples, I am not striving for compactness
> at the moment. In fact, I've fleshed out the lexicon with a lot of
> a-posteriori stuff (gradually building a nice list of basic expressions as I
> go) so I can work on the syntax. However, yes I have thought about it,
> and I agree that if compactness is the goal then a well designed morphology
> with closed class of compact, high-frequency markers is a promising route.
Since my own conlang is an open-ended loglang kind of thing, I'm tempted little
by the Ithkuil strategy. Huffman encoding type stuff holds more attraction,
i.e. what in Loglan/Lojban is called Zipfeanism -- the principle (thoroughly
flouted by Lojban) that the most frequent notions should be expressed by the
shortest forms.
--And.
Messages in this topic (32)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5a. Re: "Best" way to write a complete description of a language
Posted by: "Matthew Martin" matthewdeanmar...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Oct 17, 2010 12:44 pm ((PDT))
I would say you need to consider your audience-- what sort of fans do you
want to attract to your conlang?
If you're writing for a professional audience, the Max Plank Institute's
website
has lots of links to what constitutes a good reference grammar. That which
the professional field linguists are doing now is the state of the art and the
closest to what one could call "the best" in general.
If you are writing for the Zompist board, use whatever the LCK suggests,
because it seems to be popular there. I personally like the Paine format--but
anyone who read and understood Describing Morphosyntax was either a
professional or highly motivated. Those who have read Paine will appreciate
seeing a familiar format, those who haven't read Paine won't be at at much of
disadvantage.
If you are trying to promote you language and gain fans, then the the
reference specification needs to be digestible and pedagogical.
For example, the Paine reference grammar starts with nouns, then verbs,
other POS, etc. So you have to read six chapters to say the simplest predicate
nominal sentence. A more pedagogical approach would interleave
information about syntax, phonetics, and morphology. A reference grammar
would talk about intonation right away since it is related to phonetics, but a
pedagogical approach would defer describing intonation until it's needed,
maybe in the "questions and exclamations" section.
Finally, if the is truly an artlang, I'd make a plea to write something that
can
be read cover to cover with entertaining example sentences and entertaining
prose in between the charts. Most conlang grammars are not going to be
studied but read once and enjoyed, not read over and over and constantly
checked and cross-referenced. May you be so fortunate and talented to write
the language that will capture the imaginations of hundreds who will need a
carefully arranged reference grammar.
Matthew Martin
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6a. /S/ and /s`/ - language universals
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" mbout...@nd.edu
Date: Mon Oct 18, 2010 12:52 am ((PDT))
i am wondering whether any natlang distinguishes palato-alveolar /S/ and
retroflex /s`/ phonemically. for a conlang, i want /S/ to be an allophone
of /x/ near front vowels and /s`/ (technically /z`/) to be the reflex of
/d`/ in a proto-lang, after which all voiced stops become fricatives. yes
obviously they could merge but i want to avoid that. i also want this to be
somewhat realistic. thoughts?
matt
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
6b. Re: /S/ and /s`/ - language universals
Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Oct 18, 2010 4:26 am ((PDT))
On Mon, 18 Oct 2010 02:58:36 -0400, Matthew Boutilier <mbout...@nd.edu> wrote:
>i am wondering whether any natlang distinguishes palato-alveolar /S/ and
>retroflex /s`/ phonemically. for a conlang, i want /S/ to be an allophone
>of /x/ near front vowels and /s`/ (technically /z`/) to be the reflex of
>/d`/ in a proto-lang, after which all voiced stops become fricatives. yes
>obviously they could merge but i want to avoid that. i also want this to be
>somewhat realistic. thoughts?
Yeah, that's fine, especially if the contrast is reinforced by a laminal vs.
apical difference. The Dravidian language Toda has a four-way sibilant
contrast that's analysed a little differently in
http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/vowels/chapter13/toda.html
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toda_language
and Ladefoged and Maddieson's _The sounds of the world's languages_, but
none of them disagree it's got some kind of /S/ vs. /s`/ contrast.
In fact I'd say a slightly wider contrast of /s\/ vs. /s`/ (even laminal) is
almost commonplace -- this is what several Slavic languages and Mandarin and
so on have.
Alex
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7a. Re: OT: On the subject of dodgy looking emails...
Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" taliesin-conl...@nvg.org
Date: Mon Oct 18, 2010 3:11 am ((PDT))
On 2010-10-16 13:37, Samuel Stutter wrote:
> From: Adobe Support <newslet...@adobe-acrobat-software.com>
> Date: 16 October 2010 11:13:51 GMT+01:00
> To: <sam.stut...@student.manchester.ac.uk>
> Subject: Action Required : Upgrade Your New PDF Acrobat Reader
> Reply-To: Adobe Support
> <support-bxsy3wrbgyaue0au9qud4qch971...@grandparents.chtah.com>
Discalimer: I work as a postmaster, that is, I run email-servers,
investigate spams, hunt down missing emails and get to judge whether
emails like the one above is fake on an almost daily basis.
As other have mentioned, with a Reply-To: like that you can pretty
safely assume it is a scam. That out of the way:
The point in my answering though, is the opportunity to educate y'all.
The headers above (From:, Date:, To:, Subject:, Reply-To:) are all
easily faked, as they are set by the email client. Most clients hide the
"good" headers, which are set by the servers that the email pass through
on their way to the recipient. Y'all need to figure out how to view the
raw, unfiltered text of the email. In Mozilla Thunderbird, which is the
standard at work, I can get this version by Ctrl-u. Gmail has a choice
"Show original" which does the same thing.
If you need to report a spam or scam or otherwise complain, this
original on-server version is what you need to attach. Save it to a file
and attach it. Do not forward it as that usually strips away the good
headers!
If you want to analyse email yourself, start from the last of the
headers, that is the lines starting with
words-with-dashes-that-ends-with-a-colon: then scroll upwards. First you
hit the headers added by the client, then you hit the headers added by
the servers the email has passed through, first-to-last. Pay special
attention to Received:, which tells about the route, and X-Original-To:
and Return-Path: (usually at the top) which tells you about the
original, non-faked recipient and the original non-faked sender.
X-headers are optional so you might not have X-Original-To:. If you
don't have X-Original-To, look in Received:. In Sam's mail:
Received: from [82.132.139.200] (port=52648 helo=[10.26.48.67]) by
rankine.its.manchester.ac.uk with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES128-
SHA:128) (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from
<sam.stut...@student.manchester.ac.uk>) id 1P754e-00028q-HS for
conl...@listserv.brown.edu; Sat, 16 Oct 2010
12:37:21 +0100
Notice the "for conl...@listserv.brown.edu; Sat, 16 Oct 2010
12:37:21 +0100"? That gives you original recipient, and true date. A
little further up in that block you'll (find envelope-from
<sam.stut...@student.manchester.ac.uk>). The magic word is
"envelope-from", this is the origianl sender. Analysing "Received:" is a
bit of a black art, you won't always find "envelope-from" and "for" for
instance, and some (evil!) servers add fake Received:-headers, but it is
enough to get started.
Unfortunately: some stupid, self-defeating organizations that don't
think enough about their own image and reputation (like banks, insurance
companies and travel agencies) outsource the sending of bulk email to
other servers with other domain names: this means that even if you check
all the headers and it looks like a scam it might still be legit! The
thing to do then is of course to contact the business in question, *not
using any info in the email* but by using the phone-number you already
have since you are a customer of theirs, and ask what is going on. Maybe
they'll get it (and pigs will fly) and stop self-sabotaging in that
prticularly stupid manner.
Rules of thumb:
* If somebody ask you to reply with your username and/or password or
other identifying info in an email there are two and only two possibilities:
1: It's a scam.
2: The business/organization is too stupid to exist and you should do
business with somebody else.
* If it's too good to be true, it's a fraud.
t.
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
7b. Re: OT: On the subject of dodgy looking emails...
Posted by: "Eugene Oh" un.do...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Oct 18, 2010 3:18 am ((PDT))
Thanks, taliesin, for a very informative post. (:
Eugene
2010/10/18 taliesin the storyteller <taliesin-conl...@nvg.org>
> On 2010-10-16 13:37, Samuel Stutter wrote:
> > From: Adobe Support <newslet...@adobe-acrobat-software.com>
> > Date: 16 October 2010 11:13:51 GMT+01:00
> > To: <sam.stut...@student.manchester.ac.uk>
> > Subject: Action Required : Upgrade Your New PDF Acrobat Reader
> > Reply-To: Adobe Support <
> support-bxsy3wrbgyaue0au9qud4qch971...@grandparents.chtah.com>
>
> Discalimer: I work as a postmaster, that is, I run email-servers,
> investigate spams, hunt down missing emails and get to judge whether
> emails like the one above is fake on an almost daily basis.
>
> As other have mentioned, with a Reply-To: like that you can pretty
> safely assume it is a scam. That out of the way:
>
> The point in my answering though, is the opportunity to educate y'all.
> The headers above (From:, Date:, To:, Subject:, Reply-To:) are all
> easily faked, as they are set by the email client. Most clients hide the
> "good" headers, which are set by the servers that the email pass through
> on their way to the recipient. Y'all need to figure out how to view the
> raw, unfiltered text of the email. In Mozilla Thunderbird, which is the
> standard at work, I can get this version by Ctrl-u. Gmail has a choice
> "Show original" which does the same thing.
>
> If you need to report a spam or scam or otherwise complain, this
> original on-server version is what you need to attach. Save it to a file
> and attach it. Do not forward it as that usually strips away the good
> headers!
>
> If you want to analyse email yourself, start from the last of the
> headers, that is the lines starting with
> words-with-dashes-that-ends-with-a-colon: then scroll upwards. First you
> hit the headers added by the client, then you hit the headers added by
> the servers the email has passed through, first-to-last. Pay special
> attention to Received:, which tells about the route, and X-Original-To:
> and Return-Path: (usually at the top) which tells you about the
> original, non-faked recipient and the original non-faked sender.
> X-headers are optional so you might not have X-Original-To:. If you
> don't have X-Original-To, look in Received:. In Sam's mail:
>
> Received: from [82.132.139.200] (port=52648 helo=[10.26.48.67]) by
> rankine.its.manchester.ac.uk with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES128-
> SHA:128) (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from
> <sam.stut...@student.manchester.ac.uk>) id 1P754e-00028q-HS for
> conl...@listserv.brown.edu; Sat, 16 Oct 2010
> 12:37:21 +0100
>
> Notice the "for conl...@listserv.brown.edu; Sat, 16 Oct 2010
> 12:37:21 +0100"? That gives you original recipient, and true date. A
> little further up in that block you'll (find envelope-from
> <sam.stut...@student.manchester.ac.uk>). The magic word is
> "envelope-from", this is the origianl sender. Analysing "Received:" is a
> bit of a black art, you won't always find "envelope-from" and "for" for
> instance, and some (evil!) servers add fake Received:-headers, but it is
> enough to get started.
>
> Unfortunately: some stupid, self-defeating organizations that don't
> think enough about their own image and reputation (like banks, insurance
> companies and travel agencies) outsource the sending of bulk email to
> other servers with other domain names: this means that even if you check
> all the headers and it looks like a scam it might still be legit! The
> thing to do then is of course to contact the business in question, *not
> using any info in the email* but by using the phone-number you already
> have since you are a customer of theirs, and ask what is going on. Maybe
> they'll get it (and pigs will fly) and stop self-sabotaging in that
> prticularly stupid manner.
>
> Rules of thumb:
>
> * If somebody ask you to reply with your username and/or password or
> other identifying info in an email there are two and only two
> possibilities:
>
> 1: It's a scam.
> 2: The business/organization is too stupid to exist and you should do
> business with somebody else.
>
> * If it's too good to be true, it's a fraud.
>
>
> t.
>
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
7c. Re: OT: On the subject of dodgy looking emails...
Posted by: "Tristan Plumb" tongues+l...@trstn.net
Date: Mon Oct 18, 2010 4:55 am ((PDT))
> Pay special attention to Received:, which tells about the route, and
> X-Original-To: and Return-Path: (usually at the top) which tells you about
> the original, non-faked recipient and the original non-faked sender.
A note: Return-Path is also easially faked, if you run the mail-server.
Every so often I get a couple hundred bounces of mails sort of like this:
Received: from rxsyrb.piper-net.de ([83.218.57.194]) by Mail.TIDCO.NET with
Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);
Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:47:21 -0400
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 21:55:06 -0000
From: "Delaguardia" <blast...@trstn.net>
To: hlawre...@tidco.co.tt
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="us-ascii"
Message-ID: <1c50e07e25bc38477220090718215...@trstn.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Subject: decompresser
Return-Path: blast...@trstn.net
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 18 Jul 2009 21:47:21.0758 (UTC)
FILETIME=[546023E0:01CA07F1]
So don't trust Return-Path too much, it just says where to send failed
delivery notices (and nobody uses blast...@trstn.net). On the other hand,
the Recieved headers provide a excellent history of when whose computers
got cracked. Then again, fake Recieved headers could be prepended before
sending, but I doubt anybody takes the trouble.
tristan
--
All original matter is hereby placed immediately under the public domain.
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
7d. Re: OT: On the subject of dodgy looking emails...
Posted by: "Sai" s...@saizai.com
Date: Mon Oct 18, 2010 6:28 am ((PDT))
Sam, there's no way in hell that email is not in fact spam -
regardless of whether you use Acrobat.
Cues:
1. sent from an obviously fake address - Adobe is adobe.com
2. no legitimate software updates are sent by email link; they're
notified from within your program (e.g. the Adobe Updater)
3. almost zero legitimate emails start with "Action required"; that's
just straight up intimidation to override your skepticism
4. reply-to is not the same domain as from:. This is *sometimes*
legit, in that legit companies use legit third party bulk mailers, but
that's rare, and if they're halfway competent you wouldn't know
because they'd route it to a special address on the same domain.
5. "get your options" is meaningless, "this is to remind that",
"internet-sharing" are marginal. large companies especially will not
make such stupid mistakes with their English; these are foreign
speaker disfluencies, which in turn indicates a probably Russian
author.
6. the domain was first registered 10/16/10, as you can tell by
running "whois adobe-acrobat-software.com" in any decent operating
system's shell, or on any registrar's WHOIS tool. Again, no legit
company will be mass mailing from a freshly registered domain.
Since it's down now I can't tell, but I'd bet that this is not merely
a scam but a site providing drive-by downloads (i.e. software that
exploits vulnerabilities on your computer to execute its program
locally) to recruit your computer as a zombie in a botnet.
Which is very definitely not something you want.
Remember people, for anything like this, you can just go directly to
the company's real website - not by clicking a link in the email.
Also remember, with email, unless you're an expert like taliesin (e.g.
you know what return-path is and how mail routing works enough to
trace it), you should presume that everything you see (e.g. who it's
supposedly from) is potentially a lie. And even so it still is; we
just know how to authenticate non-lies. :-P
- Sai
Messages in this topic (11)
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