(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 GamerGeek »

Why was ϝ (/w/) dropped in most dialects of Ancient Greek?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Sumelic »

It's mainly about the loss of /j/, but there is a brief discussion of /w/ as well in CONSPIRACY IN HISTORICAL PHONOLOGY, Sean Jacob Crist (2001) on pages 61-64. There's a reference to "Steriade’s rule of Greek */w/ deletion (1982, p. 118-9)" which might have more discussion.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by GamerGeek »

Also, what are the chances that either
  1. A language thought to be a natlang is actually a conlang
  2. Two natlangs are very similar but are not related in any way
Both seem pretty unlikely, but I don't think that either of them are impossible
Last edited by GamerGeek on 26 May 2017 04:22, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by GrandPiano »

GamerGeek wrote:Also, what are the chances that either
  1. A natlang is actually a conlang
What do you mean by this? By definition, a conlang is not a natlang.
GamerGeek wrote:b. Two natlangs are very similar but do not share a common root
As in, they are so similar that they appear to be related even though they aren't? Theoretically it could happen, but it's extremely unlikely. If there's a known example of this happening, I'm not aware of it. If one language borrows enough vocabulary from another, the two languages may appear to be related at first glance, but in most of those cases, differences in grammar and basic vocabulary reveal that they don't share a reconstructable common root.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Trebor »

How do languages of various families handle the different types of relative clause (restrictive, non-restrictive, etc.)? Googling, including on Wals.info, hasn't turned up much.

From here:

'The man who lives in this house has not been seen for days.This.'

'The mayor, who lives in this house, has not been seen for days.'

'The cat was allowed on the bed, which annoyed the dog.'

'I like what I see.'

'She is the person on whom to rely.'

And from here (PDF):

'Mary is [courageous], which I will never be.'

'John is [in the garden], which is where I should be.'

'Mary has [resigned], which John hasn’t.'

'[John was late], which was unfortunate.'
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Creyeditor »

I feel like it's mostly English that makes a distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive ones. Other languages I know of, usually only have a slightly different intonation, but no other syntactic difference. Some languages have restrictions on what you can use a relative clause on. I think it's easiest on subjects and most difficult on whole clauses. The role of the relativized noun inside the relative clause is also restricted in some languages. The same hierarchy apllies, so subjects are more likely than objects and so on.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Lambuzhao »

Sumelic wrote:It's mainly about the loss of /j/, but there is a brief discussion of /w/ as well in CONSPIRACY IN HISTORICAL PHONOLOGY, Sean Jacob Crist (2001) on pages 61-64. There's a reference to "Steriade’s rule of Greek */w/ deletion (1982, p. 118-9)" which might have more discussion.

Remember that not all dialects of :grc: lost Vau/Digamma at the same time. In some Doric dialects and Aeolian, it persisted into Classical Times (at least).
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

GrandPiano wrote:
GamerGeek wrote:Also, what are the chances that either
  1. A natlang is actually a conlang
What do you mean by this? By definition, a conlang is not a natlang.
Not sure I'd agree.
To me the "nat" in "natlang" means "native" as much as it means "natural".
A conlang that has become a native language -- some kids' L1 -- now counts as a "natlang" the way I see it.
Its diachronic evolution escapes its constructors and becomes "natural" the moment it becomes the native language of some cohort of children.
What think ye, and the rest of our readers?
Is Esperanto a natlang now?
Was Urdu once a conlang?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

Trebor wrote:How do languages of various families handle the different types of relative clause (restrictive, non-restrictive, etc.)? Googling, including on Wals.info, hasn't turned up much. ...
Creyeditor wrote:I feel like it's mostly English that makes a distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive ones. ...
Consider this thread from Facebooks "Conlangs" group.

Spoiler:
Facebook wrote:Thomas Chappell
May 25 at 11:30am
Information on "How do various languages around the world handle the difference between restrictive relative clauses and non-restrictive relative clauses ?" (BTW "non-restrictive" seems to be synonymous with "appositive" when discussing RCs; I prefer "appositive".)
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Thomas Chappell
Thomas Chappell First; Look at the first two major sections of Wikipedia's article entitled "Relative clause". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_clause... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_clause... . Especially look at the subsection ...See More
LikeShow more reactions · Reply · May 25 at 11:36am · Edited
Thomas Chappell
Thomas Chappell Second; The Journal of King Saud University has an article -- http://www.sciencedirect.com/.../pii/S2210831912000057 -- discussing the differences between Arabic's and English's syntactic strategies for distinguishing between restrictive RCs and appositive RCs.

The syntax of relative and appositive clauses
The surface syntactic similarities between sentences…
SCIENCEDIRECT.COM
LikeShow more reactions · Reply · Remove Preview · May 25 at 11:41am
Thomas Chappell
Thomas Chappell Third, there's this PDF: -- https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/.../8c ... 03cdec143b... . It's written in Generativistese, which I understand about as well as I understand Martian, so it doesn't do me any good, but YMMV. It specifically discusses Turkish, inter alia.
LikeShow more reactions · Reply · May 25 at 11:45am · Edited
Thomas Chappell
Thomas Chappell Fourth is this very-good-appearing-at-first-glance PDF from Colorado State U. : -- https://wac.colostate.edu/books/sound/chapter12.pdf . It mentions appositive RCs 3 times but restrictive RCs 35 times; and though it isn't only about English, I found no other-language examples in my skimpier-than-cursory look at it. But maybe it will reward further study?
LikeShow more reactions · Reply · May 25 at 11:47am
Thomas Chappell
Thomas Chappell Fifth (and last, at least for today) is this dissertation (in PDF format) -- http://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/.../FUD... ... on_Yas.pdf . It's about how native speakers of German and Turkish can acquire proficiency with English RCs. It mentions app...See More
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I'm sorry it's such a jumble; I don't know how to link to a particular thread or a particular post one Facebook.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Sumelic »

Are there any natural-sounding ways in English to express the idea of "not very," "not particularly," "not especially" without using litotes?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

Sumelic wrote:Are there any natural-sounding ways in English to express the idea of "not very," "not particularly," "not especially" without using litotes?
Meh. Somewhat. Sorta kinda. Whatever.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Vlürch »

GrandPiano wrote:
GamerGeek wrote:Also, what are the chances that either
  1. A natlang is actually a conlang
What do you mean by this? By definition, a conlang is not a natlang.
Not sure if this is what he meant, but there are fringe theories regarding every language isolate that they may in fact be conlangs. It's pretty ridiculous, but at least in the case of Basque and/or Burushaski, it wouldn't even surprise me all that much if it turned out to be somehow determined that that was the case. Another idea, which, although far more widespread and "mainstream" in a way, is much more controversial: that modern Hebrew is a conlang. The controversy obviously comes from the accusations of antisemitism that get thrown the second it's brought up. Personally, I don't really feel any way about Jews and know pretty much literally nothing about Hebrew, so I have no view on the issue, but I know there are some serious linguists who believe that modern Hebrew is a conlang. I've also come across the theory that Sumerian was a conlang, which I guess could be true; unfortunately, the argument often seems to be that aliens trolled people by teaching them a useless language while also enslaving them or something, so it's pretty hard to take seriously...
eldin raigmore wrote:Not sure I'd agree.
To me the "nat" in "natlang" means "native" as much as it means "natural".
A conlang that has become a native language -- some kids' L1 -- now counts as a "natlang" the way I see it.
Its diachronic evolution escapes its constructors and becomes "natural" the moment it becomes the native language of some cohort of children.
What think ye, and the rest of our readers?
Is Esperanto a natlang now?
Was Urdu once a conlang?
I wish it was that simple, but honestly, if the language was once a conlang, then it will always be a conlang even if it has thousands of speakers. That'd be inherently destructive to the people's identity; they'd likely have no feeling of nationality and their personal identity would be built upon the invention of someone else. It'd be child abuse to teach a child a conlang instead of the natlang that the parents speak, especially if the parent(s) invented the conlang since they'd have full control over the child's language learning. As any conlanger knows, no conlang is ever complete, so they'd first teach something as correct but later change that to be incorrect and teach something new. It'd almost certainly totally fuck up the child's head, especially if they were taught conhistory as well.

I have no idea if this has ever actually happened, but I do know that there have been people claiming to speak completely undocumented languages that just reek of bullshit, and in cases like that, it's not necessarily always a trolly conlanger; they could just as well be the children of conlangers. Whether that's the case or not, well, no one could ever know for certain either way, but I'd like to think that with all the incestuous fuckers fucking their kids out there, there'd also be a few trolly conlangers trolling their kids into learning a conlang. I mean, even if it is child abuse, it's not as bad as most child abuse, and it would be interesting to see how the language evolved if the child turned out to one day teach their own children to speak that conlang without ever knowing that it's a conlang, and so on.

Who knows, maybe that is how some actual languages originated. The problem, then, is proving that by finding some evidence of the given language's seemingly sudden manifestation that can't be explained by it having simply remained undocumented until then or it being a creole, a random language isolate, etc.

PS: Never forget that the "con" in "conlang" is equivalent to the "con" in "conman", and that by definition conlangers are conmen. [;)]
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by GamerGeek »

Vlürch wrote:PS: Never forget that the "con" in "conlang" is equivalent to the "con" in "conman", and that by definition conlangers are conmen. [;)]
Constructed Man? [:P]
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by KaiTheHomoSapien »

Question to anyone here who might know: what are the arguments for seeing modern Hebrew as a conlang? Is it because it's a revived "dead language" and much new vocabulary had to be created?

I find this interesting in that "natlang" and "conlang" always seemed so black and white to me, but I can see how there can be blurred lines.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Creyeditor »

eldin raigmore wrote:
Trebor wrote:How do languages of various families handle the different types of relative clause (restrictive, non-restrictive, etc.)? Googling, including on Wals.info, hasn't turned up much. ...
Creyeditor wrote:I feel like it's mostly English that makes a distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive ones. ...
Consider this thread from Facebooks "Conlangs" group.

Spoiler:
Facebook wrote:Thomas Chappell
May 25 at 11:30am
Information on "How do various languages around the world handle the difference between restrictive relative clauses and non-restrictive relative clauses ?" (BTW "non-restrictive" seems to be synonymous with "appositive" when discussing RCs; I prefer "appositive".)
LikeShow more reactionsComment
1 1
Comments
Thomas Chappell
Thomas Chappell First; Look at the first two major sections of Wikipedia's article entitled "Relative clause". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_clause... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_clause... . Especially look at the subsection ...See More
LikeShow more reactions · Reply · May 25 at 11:36am · Edited
Thomas Chappell
Thomas Chappell Second; The Journal of King Saud University has an article -- http://www.sciencedirect.com/.../pii/S2210831912000057 -- discussing the differences between Arabic's and English's syntactic strategies for distinguishing between restrictive RCs and appositive RCs.

The syntax of relative and appositive clauses
The surface syntactic similarities between sentences…
SCIENCEDIRECT.COM
LikeShow more reactions · Reply · Remove Preview · May 25 at 11:41am
Thomas Chappell
Thomas Chappell Third, there's this PDF: -- https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/.../8c ... 03cdec143b... . It's written in Generativistese, which I understand about as well as I understand Martian, so it doesn't do me any good, but YMMV. It specifically discusses Turkish, inter alia.
LikeShow more reactions · Reply · May 25 at 11:45am · Edited
Thomas Chappell
Thomas Chappell Fourth is this very-good-appearing-at-first-glance PDF from Colorado State U. : -- https://wac.colostate.edu/books/sound/chapter12.pdf . It mentions appositive RCs 3 times but restrictive RCs 35 times; and though it isn't only about English, I found no other-language examples in my skimpier-than-cursory look at it. But maybe it will reward further study?
LikeShow more reactions · Reply · May 25 at 11:47am
Thomas Chappell
Thomas Chappell Fifth (and last, at least for today) is this dissertation (in PDF format) -- http://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/.../FUD... ... on_Yas.pdf . It's about how native speakers of German and Turkish can acquire proficiency with English RCs. It mentions app...See More
LikeShow more reactions
I'm sorry it's such a jumble; I don't know how to link to a particular thread or a particular post one Facebook.
I looked at the sources that I could access and none of them mentioned any expression of restrictive vs. non-restrictives RCs except in English. A lot of the links got jumbled, too, though [:(]
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by HinGambleGoth »

KaiTheHomoSapien wrote:I find this interesting in that "natlang" and "conlang" always seemed so black and white to me, but I can see how there can be blurred lines.
You could argue, that some highly presciptive standard languages have shades of that, like standard German.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by KaiTheHomoSapien »

^Same goes for Classical Latin, I suppose. Especially when neologisms are created for the purposes of speaking Classical Latin in the modern age.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

Sumelic wrote:Are there any natural-sounding ways in English to express the idea of "not very," "not particularly," "not especially" without using litotes?
Slightly. Unexceptionally. Conventionally. Reasonably. Quotidianly. Unremarkably. Moderately. Hardly. Softly. Gently. Minimally. Marginally Partly. Partially. Arguably. Technically. Genuinely. Quite. The opposite of. Not.

It's hard to say, really, because those expressions you gave can cover a huge range of meanings, so there are a huge number of words that could in some contexts be replaced by one of those expressions to give a similar meaning (if not quite the same pragmatics).

"He murdered my wife, so I'm not particularly fond of him" - here, it means something like "the opposite of", or just "not".
"It's not very cheesy" - here, something like "only slightly" or "minimally".
"How's your calligraphy?" - "Not especially good, but it'll do" - here, it means something like "(only) reasonably".
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

Creyeditor wrote:I looked at the sources that I could access and none of them mentioned any expression of restrictive vs. non-restrictives RCs except in English. A lot of the links got jumbled, too, though [:(]
All I did was actually open the top five hits on my search.
Try this search.
Actually follow the first ten links and search the documents they link to for "relative" and/or "restrictive" and/or "non-restrictive" and/or "appositive".
If Yahoo! doesn't work for you, try this search.
Again, I recommend follow the first ten links and search the documents they link to for "relative", "restrictive", "non-restrictive", and "appositive".
If Google doesn't work for you either, try this search.
Just keep going, trying at least three different search engines, until you find a good number -- fiveish, maybe? -- of sources with relevant data.

[hr][/hr]

Here's my attempt to de-jumble some of what I said (I take it you can't get on Facebook).
Sorry I don't have time this hour to repair or replace the broken links.
If you join Facebook and join the Conlangs group there, you could read my original post there, and the links would be active.

First; Look at the first two major sections of Wikipedia's article entitled "Relative clause". Search that article for the 26 uses of the word "restrictive". If I understand correctly, Wikipedia seems to be saying that not all languages that allow both types of relative clause distinguish between them. Wikipedia's article describes how English and Hebrew do it, and one of its references describes how Serbo-Croatian and German do it.

Second; The Journal of King Saud University has an article discussing the differences between Arabic's and English's syntactic strategies for distinguishing between restrictive RCs and appositive RCs.

Third, there's this PDF: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/545a/8 ... 56b35c.pdf . It's written in Generativistese, which I understand about as well as I understand Martian, so it doesn't do me any good, but YMMV. It specifically discusses Turkish, inter alia.

Fourth is this very-good-appearing-at-first-glance PDF from Colorado State U. : . It mentions appositive RCs 3 times but restrictive RCs 35 times; and though it isn't only about English, I found no other-language examples in my skimpier-than-cursory look at it. But maybe it will reward further study?

Fifth (and last, at least for today) is this dissertation (in PDF format) -- . It's about how native speakers of German and Turkish can acquire proficiency with English RCs. It mentions appositive RCs 10 times, and restrictive RCs 91 times. I can't tell that it says anything about how German and Turkish do it; but, like the one from King Saud University, it discusses the difficulties SoEaa2L* have with English's RCs, much of which (I guess?) is probably due to differences with their L1's strategies.

[hr][/hr]
*
Edit: Speakers of English as a 2nd Language
Last edited by eldin raigmore on 29 Jun 2017 07:29, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Isfendil »

What prominent Indo European languages besides modern romance languages and english did away with PIE's ablaut features completely? The older the better.
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