Search found 164 matches

by Trebor
15 Mar 2018 00:40
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: Conlang Areal Tests
Replies: 25
Views: 8235

Re: Conlang Areal Tests

I wonder, have any more of these tests been created?

I'm also curious as to whether the ones available could be converted into HTML or Notepad or whatnot. GoogleDocs don't appear to be accessible with my screenreader.
by Trebor
09 Mar 2018 11:57
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317654

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Are there any good descriptions online of the morphology of Faroese? Someone has asked me to research the language as she might be going to the Faroe Islands, but, alas, I can't find anything semi-decent apart from the Wikipedia article 'Faroese grammar'--which itself isn't very helpful. NB: Materia...
by Trebor
27 Aug 2017 22:47
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043744

Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

So, There's something I might wanna add into my language but once again I'm going to ask the more educated crowd about it before I go and screw it up: Its easier to give you an English example, so here, "He punched him" so my question is this. have there been languages that mark the two p...
by Trebor
05 Aug 2017 02:19
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043744

Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Is it attested for a language to mark adverbs to agree with verb arguments? Example of what I am thinking: pronoun.1st.sing verb.1st.sing adverb.1st It might not be exactly what you're looking for, but check out this PDF: " Agreement in Archi from a minimalist perspective ": see in partic...
by Trebor
04 Aug 2017 20:34
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317654

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

^ Thanks for your input. I definitely agree about (2). Let's try other examples: (4) How difficult was the exam? (5) How helpful did you find the receptionist to be? (6) How quickly did you figure out what was wrong with the car? (7) How strictly does the government enforce laws against human traffi...
by Trebor
04 Aug 2017 01:32
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317654

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

I've looked a bit into pied-piping as of late, and would like to know: how do different natlangs (non-SAE/IE) handle sentences like the following? (1) How often do you go abroad on vacation? (2) How strongly do you feel about the need to vote (or lack thereof) in national elections? (3) How long of ...
by Trebor
04 Aug 2017 01:28
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043744

Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

DesEsseintes wrote:I suspect the form they're referring to is أَنَّنِي '(that) I am'.
That makes more sense. Arabic text and my screenreader don't get along too well, so I missed the boat.
by Trebor
03 Aug 2017 08:04
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043744

Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

I like it so far. The vocabulary gives me a rather polynesian feel, although your language is a priori I second these comments. although google translator indeed gives me Arabic أنني 'anani for "I am" AIUI, 'ana' is the 1SG subject pronoun; 'anaani' is 'selfish' ('I' turned into an adject...
by Trebor
02 Aug 2017 09:01
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043744

Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

The Wikipedia article has some basic "suggestions" if you will. Stricter word order appears to be associated with greater pied-piping. I don't know if there's any further documentation beyond that though. Thanks for your reply. What you say makes sense. It's not clear how to research thes...
by Trebor
01 Aug 2017 01:20
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043744

Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Is it unnaturalistic for a language to have verbs that only conjugate for the object instead of the subject? I want to make a topic-prominent language with polypersonal agreement where the subject can be deleted entirely from the verb if it is marked as the topic, and the object can be omitted if i...
by Trebor
24 Jul 2017 06:04
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043744

Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

^ Understood. That is neat how diphthongs arise, actually. And Slavic languages don't seem to be against using single vowels to mark different cases. Not to mention that if you create a daughter language where the diphthongs turn into, say, long vowels, you can end up with apophony distinguishing gr...
by Trebor
23 Jul 2017 06:35
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317654

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Thanks for your input, Omzinesý and Ephraim. Now I wonder if there are Niger-Congo languages that lack distinct reflexive pronouns or verbal extensions and rely instead upon non-logophoric/logophoric pronouns? As if we said in some strange variety of English: I saw him. You saw him. He saw him. = He...
by Trebor
23 Jul 2017 05:03
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
Replies: 11605
Views: 2043744

Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

[A]t the end of the day you have to remember that phonological forms are in most cases completely arbitrary and have no relation to the thing being denoted . So in the end it doesn't matter one bit. Take my suggestion, or not if you prefer; flip a coin if you feel like it, because at the end of the...
by Trebor
21 Jul 2017 09:43
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317654

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

I was intrigued to learn of Oceanic natlangs which lack dedicated reflexives: see, e.g., section 2.2 (pp. 10-11) of the paper " Reflexives and middle in some Polynesian and New Caledonian Languages ". Does it arise elsewhere on the globe that 'he injured him' can equally mean 'he1 injured ...
by Trebor
18 Jul 2017 08:27
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317654

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Adarain wrote:For example all western IE languages I’m aware of do not distinguish nominative and accusative in the neuters.
Which (if any) languages possessing masculine, feminine, and neuter genders also morphologically distinguish--usually or always--accusative from nominative?
by Trebor
14 Jul 2017 09:24
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317654

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

I get what you mean, but I'm not sure if "resumptive pronoun" is the right word for this, because it's not a full pronoun but merely agreement morphology on the adposition. It might qualify as clitic doubling depending on if the pronoun agreement markers can be analyzed as clitics. Fair p...
by Trebor
13 Jul 2017 22:58
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317654

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

What? Explain this to me. Sure. ... 1sg-hit 3sg.n-with stick ‘I hit with a stick.’ ... def-river 3sg-at ‘at the river’ ... I 1sg-from ‘from me’ If the adposition could be used with a full noun phrase and resumption was not needed, the glosses would look something like the following. 1sg-hit with st...
by Trebor
13 Jul 2017 19:51
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317654

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Yes to the first. It occurs in miscellaneous languages. (1) Maybrat (Dol 1999: 88) T-ai m-kah ara. 1sg-hit 3sg.n-with stick ‘I hit with a stick.’ (11) Abkhaz (Hewitt 1979: 103) a. a-jə̀yas a-q’nə̀ def-river 3sg-at ‘at the river’ b. sarà s-q’ənt˚’ I 1sg-from ‘from me’ Thanks for these examples. It s...
by Trebor
13 Jul 2017 11:01
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317654

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Aside from Celtic and Semitic, are there additional languages or language families with regular series of inflected/conjugated adpositions? Are there Mande languages of West Africa that form relative clauses in a fashion more familiar to native English speakers than the internally-headed or correlat...
by Trebor
13 Jul 2017 00:10
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: False friends and other unfortunate coincidences
Replies: 881
Views: 275069

Re: False friends and other unfortunate coincidences

According to this dictionary , shî means "the leg", "the foot" or "the footprint" and shîm means "the eye", so it seems not to be a typo (or if it is, it's one that is being repeated, haha). What made you suspect a typo? Thanks for checking into the Kanuri wo...