(L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]

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

Post by Omzinesý »

Ashtâr Balînestyâr wrote:In Classical Arabic (and, I assume, its descendants), plural inanimate nouns agree with feminine singular adjectives. In the IE languages, the direct-case endings of plural neuter nouns are identical to those of singular feminine nouns (*-eh₂). This correspondence seems too clean for me to think it’s just a coincidence, but I don’t know.

1. Are there any analogues to this feature in other Semitic languages, or did Arabic develop it independently?
2. Is it possible that it was borrowed between Proto-Semitic and PIE, or must both cases be explained as parallel developments?
That's an interesting question. I don't know. I try to avoid saying too much so that I don't lie much. If somebody has good information or papers on Proto-Afroasiatic and its grammar, I'm happy to see them too.

Semitic languages belong to Afro-Asiatic language family.
"Feminine" suffix is older than Proto-Semitic and it has different kinds of derivational uses, among them collectives and singulatives.
So the suffix is grammaticalizing to a gender maker referring to females. I think the same happened in PIE too.

So there is quite good evidence to believe the development in Afroasiatic/Semitic happened independently. The gender changes are very typical for Afroasiatic. In Somali, some feminine nouns agree in masculine when plural too.
Some contact introduced development may have happened (it's apparently much more common than genealogical models allow). Proto-Afroasiatic is just so badly researched and so scattered a language family, that's it's nearly impossible to say anything about its relations to PIE (or any other language families).
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

Does enybody know a language where a transitive verb without an explicite object presupposes a definite object (1) but a clause without a semantic object needs a dummy object (2)?

An arbitrary example:
(1)
Si noro.
SG1 love
'I love him/her/it/them.'

(2)
Si noro ta.
SG1 love Dummy.OBJECT
'I love.'

Some languages do it with antipassives, but are there languages with dummy objects?
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by pittmirg »

Iyionaku wrote:Don't know if you mean that, but in Australia there was a "secret language" (de facto a cipher) among the Dyurbal people that was only taught a few men.
Nah, I'm pretty sure it was in Asia, not in Australia. The speakers were supposedly nomadic shepherds or sth like that. Could be something Wikipedia made up or misrepresented, though :/
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Iyionaku »

pittmirg wrote:
Iyionaku wrote: Nah, I'm pretty sure it was in Asia, not in Australia. The speakers were supposedly nomadic shepherds or sth like that. Could be something Wikipedia made up or misrepresented, though :/
Nope, it's definitely Australia. I reference-checked it: It's the Lardil people, not Dyurbal. The secret language is called Demiin. The people used to live on Mornington Island.
Edit: Just saw that Frislander had already stated that as well.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by sangi39 »

Iyionaku wrote:
pittmirg wrote:
Iyionaku wrote: Nah, I'm pretty sure it was in Asia, not in Australia. The speakers were supposedly nomadic shepherds or sth like that. Could be something Wikipedia made up or misrepresented, though :/
Nope, it's definitely Australia. I reference-checked it: It's the Lardil people, not Dyurbal. The secret language is called Demiin. The people used to live on Mornington Island.
Edit: Just saw that Frislander had already stated that as well.
There are "languages", or varieties of language usage, that are distinct and dependent on gender, in areas of South America and Australia, and the Nushu script, used exclusively by women to write Shaozhou Tuhua. The only "secret language" I can think of spoken by men though is Damin, mentioned above, spoken in Australia (although apparently it's now effectively extinct).
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Trebor »

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 a book can you read in one week?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Creyeditor »

Trebor wrote: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 a book can you read in one week?
:idn: Indonesian

(1) These three work
Kamu luar negri berapa kali se-liburan?
you out state how_often times one-vacation
How often do you go abroad on vacation?

Berapa kali se-liburan kamu luar negri?
how_often times one-vacation you out state
How often do you go abroad on vacation?

Berapa kali kamu luar negri se-liburan?
how_often times you out state one-vacation
How often do you go abroad on vacation?

This one sound really weird
*Berapa kamu luar negri se-liburan kali?
how_often you out state one-vacation times
How often do you go abroad on vacation?

(2) I don't think this is easily translatable for several reasons:
  • 'to feel strongly about something' is a very idiomatic expression
  • Degrees of adverbs are difficult to question in Indonesion
  • The sentence is from a certain register or style and has a rather complex syntactic structure (feelings about the need to vote). It would be reformulated in Indonesian
(3) Again this is an idiomatic expression 'how long of a book'. No direct translation possible. I guess you would say 'how many pages' instead.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Trebor »

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

Post by Salmoneus »

Leaving aside Trebor's bizarre "of" in that example, which makes it ungrammatical for me, how is "how long a book is it?" idiomatic? Except, I guess, in defining that dimension as length rather than depth or width, which I guess might make more sense. But "how wide a book is it?" or "how prolonged a story is it?" would be pretty direct and non-idiomatic paraphrases that would still display the grammar.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by All4Ɇn »

Salmoneus wrote:Leaving aside Trebor's bizarre "of" in that example, which makes it ungrammatical for me
For me it sounds weird without the "of"
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Jackk »

All4Ɇn wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:Leaving aside Trebor's bizarre "of" in that example, which makes it ungrammatical for me
For me it sounds weird without the "of"
Hmm. I like it without the "of" in "How wide a plank is that?", but I want it in "How much of an arsehole is he being?"
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Axiem »

All4Ɇn wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:Leaving aside Trebor's bizarre "of" in that example, which makes it ungrammatical for me
For me it sounds weird without the "of"
Without the of sounds slightly more colloquial, but to my ear, they're both "correct" in that I've heard people make the construction.
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Post by Creyeditor »

Salmoneus wrote:Leaving aside Trebor's bizarre "of" in that example, which makes it ungrammatical for me, how is "how long a book is it?" idiomatic? Except, I guess, in defining that dimension as length rather than depth or width, which I guess might make more sense. But "how wide a book is it?" or "how prolonged a story is it?" would be pretty direct and non-idiomatic paraphrases that would still display the grammar.
This is actually easier to translate, but the dimension for a book can only be thickness, never length in Indonesian. In all of these examples, thickness acta more like a noun:

(2') These all sound correct and okay:
Buku itu se-berapa tebal?
book DEM one-how_many thick
How thick is the book? lit. How many is the thickness like of that book


Se-berapa tebal-nya Buku itu ?
one-how_many thick-3SG.POSS book DEM
How thick is the book? lit. How many is the thickness like of that book


Buku itu tebal-nya bagaimana?
book DEM thick-3SG.POSS how?
How thick is the book? lit. How is the thickness of that book?

Tebal-nya bagaimana buku itu ?
thick-3SG.POSS how book DEM
How thick is the book? lit. How is the thickness of that book?

Buku itu tebal-nya bagaimana?
book DEM thick-3SG.POSS how?
How thick is the book? lit. How is the thickness of that book?

This one sounds kind of weird, but not really
?Se-berapa buku itu tebal?
one-how_many book DEM thick
How thick is the book? lit. How many is the thickness like of that book


This one sounds a bit better
?Bagaimana buku itu tebal-nya?
how book DEM thick-3SG.POSS?
How thick is the book? lit. How is the thickness of that book?

These also show that only nouns can be questioned, or that you can only question degree of words that can take the third person possessive affix. This makes it difficult to translate the questions in 4,5, and 6 are more difficult. In real discourse you would usually not ask for the degree, but instead for the truth of the property. Keep in mind that you could always answer these with a degree. Sorry for not helping much with pied-piping.

(4)
Ujian susa, tidak?
exam difficult, NEG
Was the exam difficult?

Ujian itu susanya bagaimana?
exam DEM difficult-3POSS how
How difficult was the exam lit. how was the difficulty of the exam

Bagaimana susanya ujian itu?
how difficult-3POSS exam DEM
How difficult was the exam lit. how was the difficulty of the exam

The next one is not okay
*Bagaimana ujian itu susanya
how difficult-3POSS exam DEM
How difficult was the exam lit. how was the difficulty of the exam

(5) Okay, so helpful is not really an adjective in Indonesian, IINM.

Kamu kira pelayan mau bantu, tidak?
2SG think servant want help, NEG
Do you think the receptionist wanted to help?

If we use the word 'how' to question the constituent including 'help', we can only ask how he wanted to help.

Kamu kira pelayan mau bantu bagaimana?
2SG think servant want help how
How do you think the receptionist wanted to help?


Again, I find 6 and 7 difficult to translate, because questioning the degree of adverbs is not easy. Let's try an easier example:

Cepat-nya manusia berapa kalau lari?
fast-3poss human how_much if run
How fast does a human run? lit. how much is the speed of a human if (s)he runs

Manusia cepat-nya berapa kalau lari?
human fast-3poss how_much if run
How fast does a human run? lit. how much is the speed of a human if (s)he runs

Manusia kalau lari cepat-nya berapa?
human if run fast-3poss how_much
How fast does a human run? lit. how much is the speed of a human if (s)he runs

Berapa cepat-nya manusia kalau lari?
how_much fast-3poss human if run
How fast does a human run? lit. how much is the speed of a human if (s)he runs

This one does not work:
*Berapa manusia kalau lari cepat-nya ?
how_much human if run fast-3poss
How fast does a human run? lit. how much is the speed of a human if (s)he runs
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Iyionaku »

Does anyone know where the simplified character 书 (book) comes from? I can't really see how it may have derived from 書.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by GrandPiano »

Iyionaku wrote:Does anyone know where the simplified character 书 (book) comes from? I can't really see how it may have derived from 書.
书 was most likely derived from the cursive form of 書.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Lao Kou »

GrandPiano wrote:
Iyionaku wrote:Does anyone know where the simplified character 书 (book) comes from? I can't really see how it may have derived from 書.
书 was most likely derived from the cursive form of 書.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by TwistedOne151 »

Does anyone know of any sources with info on the historic sound changes in Romani (from, say, Proto-Indo-Aryan or Middle Indo-Aryan)?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by GrandPiano »

Lao Kou wrote:
GrandPiano wrote:
Iyionaku wrote:Does anyone know where the simplified character 书 (book) comes from? I can't really see how it may have derived from 書.
书 was most likely derived from the cursive form of 書.
There's this.
That link won't open in the browser I'm using. What's the content?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by All4Ɇn »

How exactly did Portuguese and Spanish get tive and tuve for the perfect of ter/tener? I'm guessing the -n- was somehow removed leaving tui and a -v- was inserted for prosody?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Lao Kou »

GrandPiano wrote:
Lao Kou wrote:
GrandPiano wrote:
Iyionaku wrote:Does anyone know where the simplified character 书 (book) comes from? I can't really see how it may have derived from 書.
书 was most likely derived from the cursive form of 書.
There's this.
That link won't open in the browser I'm using. What's the content?
It's a 5½ minute schmooze, in Mandarin, about the history of the character 书. It talks you through, and gives visual examples of, the 甲骨文,金文,篆书,隶书,楷书,行书,and 草书 forms of the character. It's aimed at Chinese students, so it wraps up with a rousing discussion of how characters are a treasure of Chinese heritage and how good Chinese people should develop and foster within themselves a deep understanding and appreciation of them.
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