Search found 497 matches

by Adarain
04 Jun 2017 21:15
Forum: Teach & Share
Topic: Curiosities from the languages of Italy
Replies: 15
Views: 17208

Re: Curiosities from the languages of Italy

Want a crazy sound change from a Romance language just a bit outside of Italy (similar but more restricted forms of the sound change occur in related languages in Northern Italy)? I present you the Surmeiran Verschärfung (fortition): Diphthongal offglides /j w ə̯/ become velar stops before a followi...
by Adarain
03 Jun 2017 18:17
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Interaction between ergativity, pro-drop, and causatives?
Replies: 18
Views: 6262

Re: Interaction between ergativity, pro-drop, and causatives

Ye, ergative (and accusative) are commonly used for peripheral functions as well; I would not be surprised to find some languages that demote the O argument to a peripheral NP marked with the ergative in antipassives (which would be more or less an inverse).
by Adarain
03 Jun 2017 17:52
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: Quick Diachronics Challenge
Replies: 1041
Views: 268675

Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

apu teho kise fufu ipa vugo zisu labu nado Is my list of guesses. Many features are very persistent, and sometimes it looks a bit messier because the application of one rule blocks a later common rule (such as elision of an initial vowel blocking subsequent elision of a final vowel in the VCV words...
by Adarain
03 Jun 2017 15:07
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: Quick Diachronics Challenge
Replies: 1041
Views: 268675

Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Ooh this looks great (at a glance at least). Time to waste an afternoon, I guess.
by Adarain
03 Jun 2017 15:02
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Interaction between ergativity, pro-drop, and causatives?
Replies: 18
Views: 6262

Re: Interaction between ergativity, pro-drop, and causatives

Often a sentence will be antipassivized so that the former absolutive argument becomes ergative, to then drop it, if one wants to omit it. This would make your “I eat it” into 1-ABS eat.ATP-PST I don't think the antipassive normally turns the former absolutive argument to ergative, does it? My unde...
by Adarain
03 Jun 2017 01:14
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Interaction between ergativity, pro-drop, and causatives?
Replies: 18
Views: 6262

Re: Interaction between ergativity, pro-drop, and causatives

It doesn’t necessarily clash with it per se, but in many ergative languages, the absolutive argument cannot be dropped, or if it can, still rarely is - while the ergative is very often omitted. Often a sentence will be antipassivized so that the former absolutive argument becomes ergative, to then d...
by Adarain
01 Jun 2017 19:30
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: What IS natural?
Replies: 50
Views: 11361

Re: What IS natural?

While unrelated languages at times look very different, there are always commonalities. For one these include very simple universal statements about human language. Every language uses phonemes (including sign languages). Every language has hierarchical syntax allowing for things like embedding sent...
by Adarain
01 Jun 2017 18:25
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Guess the language from the gloss!
Replies: 184
Views: 29521

Re: Guess the language from the gloss!

First of all, the (28) scares me. I was gonna guess Bantu at first upon seing the numbered categories, but afaik no bantu lang has noun classes numbered up that far, they usually only go till somewhere around 15.

Is it spoken in Papua New Guinea; or in South America?
by Adarain
01 Jun 2017 18:18
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Interaction between ergativity, pro-drop, and causatives?
Replies: 18
Views: 6262

Re: Interaction between ergativity, pro-drop, and causatives

"I force-feed fish" would be "1-ERG fish-ERG eat", with a pro-dropped thing that's getting eaten. That bit is problematic, usually in ergative langs the absolutive NP is mandatory, or at least more mandatory than the ergative one. I would expect that to be able to express “I for...
by Adarain
01 Jun 2017 16:57
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Interaction between ergativity, pro-drop, and causatives?
Replies: 18
Views: 6262

Re: Interaction between ergativity, pro-drop, and causatives

Generally speaking ergative and passive sentences look more or less the same, the only exception being that a passive would be clearly a derived structure while an ergative sentence is an underlying structure (hence passives being marked with some form of construction). In most ergative languages, t...
by Adarain
29 May 2017 18:02
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: Quick Diachronics Challenge
Replies: 1041
Views: 268675

Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

So, there’s been some downtime so I guess I’ll reveal it. It’s somewhat hard to actually make any real groups as I’ve done most sound changes somewhat areally, affecting multiple dialects that may already have different words. The very first generation looked like this: http://i.imgur.com/8An3a3c.pn...
by Adarain
25 May 2017 12:06
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: Quick Diachronics Challenge
Replies: 1041
Views: 268675

Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

If you want geographic naming, the map is located around southeastern Switzerland.

Those last guesses are pretty far off btw. I did a lot of work with isoglosses, so going for a purely tree-based model might not work out very well.
by Adarain
25 May 2017 00:05
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: Quick Diachronics Challenge
Replies: 1041
Views: 268675

Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Here’s some extinct forms. Extra data!
Spoiler:
Image
by Adarain
23 May 2017 15:31
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: Quick Diachronics Challenge
Replies: 1041
Views: 268675

Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

I’ll leave you guys hanging for a bit longer, but I have some extinct forms if you get stuck.
by Adarain
23 May 2017 13:19
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: Quick Diachronics Challenge
Replies: 1041
Views: 268675

Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

While the original words were indeed taken from a natlang, it isn’t semitic.

Also some guesses are close, and one guess for one of the words was in fact spot on (but the other one was not).
by Adarain
23 May 2017 00:30
Forum: Beginners' Corner
Topic: [j] vs [i̯]
Replies: 17
Views: 7218

Re: [j] vs [i̯]

But then again you can analyze Swedish as lacking voiced fricatives altogether, only being alophones of approximants in energetic pronunciation or intervocalic realizations of voiced stops. Some Germanic languages/dialects are generally analyzed this way, like Swiss German or danish. Most analyses ...
by Adarain
23 May 2017 00:19
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: Quick Diachronics Challenge
Replies: 1041
Views: 268675

Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Alright, I think I’m done with it. It definitely doesn’t meet my perfectionistic standards but to do that I’d have to spend hours upon hours more trying to plot everythign and then you guys would have to wait for even more ages. I’ve kinda rushed it a bit towards the end so I can’t vouch for perfect...
by Adarain
20 May 2017 13:08
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: Quick Diachronics Challenge
Replies: 1041
Views: 268675

Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Whoops.

I got distracted by a speedlanging week over on our discord and completely forgot about it afterwards. Sorry bout that. I've got about 50% of the work done, I'll try to get it done asap.
by Adarain
16 May 2017 18:00
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: Speedlanging weekend V: 17th June
Replies: 17
Views: 3523

Re: Speedlanging weekend V: 3th June

Not to be rude but aren’t you maybe overdoing it a bit? I’d rather let some more time pass. Plus you’ve already organized the last one, maybe give someone else a chance to make a challenge instead?
by Adarain
07 May 2017 23:31
Forum: Conlangs
Topic: What did you accomplish today? [2011–2019]
Replies: 11462
Views: 1631716

Re: What did you accomplish today?

More like “this week”, but…

https://github.com/Adarain/Speedlanging ... llenge.pdf

Apparently the footnotes (which contain links elaborating) don’t show up on github. They do show up when downloaded though, just checked.