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

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

Post by Adarain »

I reckon this is the first comment I’ve got about that quote, and I’m pretty sure I’ve had it in my signature either since I’ve joined the CBB or since shortly thereafter. It’s definitely my favourite stanza(?) from the Hávamǫ́l.
At kveldi skal dag lęyfa,
Konu es bręnnd es,
Mæki es ręyndr es,
Męy es gefin es,
Ís es yfir kømr,
Ǫl es drukkit es.
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LinguistCat
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by LinguistCat »

LinguistCat wrote:Moved this from the wrong thread over to here.

When/how did Classical Japanese 好く, a yodan verb according to this, become Modern Japanese 好き(な), a na-adjective? Was it about the same as 嫌ふ/嫌う becoming 嫌い(な), which was also a yodan verb and also became a na-adjective? I suppose since I can see a few ways it could happen, I'm more interested in when the change started and how long (approx) it took. Thanks.
Once again in case it got buried
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Frislander
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Frislander »

LinguistCat wrote:
LinguistCat wrote:Moved this from the wrong thread over to here.

When/how did Classical Japanese 好く, a yodan verb according to this, become Modern Japanese 好き(な), a na-adjective? Was it about the same as 嫌ふ/嫌う becoming 嫌い(な), which was also a yodan verb and also became a na-adjective? I suppose since I can see a few ways it could happen, I'm more interested in when the change started and how long (approx) it took. Thanks.
Once again in case it got buried
You best bet for this one is probably PMing clawgrip, since he's the one here who knows most about Japanese philology and indeed has created his own Japonic conlang Yabushionese. You might not get a quick response (he hasn't been active since Tuesday at the time of posting) but he's definitely the one to go to.
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LinguistCat
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by LinguistCat »

Frislander wrote: You best bet for this one is probably PMing clawgrip, since he's the one here who knows most about Japanese philology and indeed has created his own Japonic conlang Yabushionese. You might not get a quick response (he hasn't been active since Tuesday at the time of posting) but he's definitely the one to go to.
Yeah, he's becoming my main source on this stuff when googling fails me, it seems. But I will check with him.
Trebor
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Trebor »

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 him2' and 'he1 injured himself1'?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

Trebor wrote: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 him2' and 'he1 injured himself1'?
I don't know.


With posessive pronouns it seems to be common. Hei broke hisi or j heart.


Old Finnish literal texts used possessed forms of personal pronouns as reflexive pronouns.

Hän tappo hän-en-sä (or something like that)
SG3 killed SG3-ACC-POSS
'He killed himself.' lit. 'He killed his him.'
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
Ephraim
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Ephraim »

Trebor wrote: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 him2' and 'he1 injured himself1'?
Old English. It had lost the inherited reflexive pronouns in *se- and the new X-self reflexives didn't arise until the Middle English period.
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~rcs107/The ... r_2006.pdf
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Axiem
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Axiem »

Despite having studied several languages, I haven't yet studied one where tones are a central aspect*. However, I'm looking into at least one of my conlangs having tones be important, but I really have no good basis for where to start mentally on that—either in terms of how to even hear tones or how they're used.

Is there a good (free) thing or place online where I can actually start trying to figure out (at least hearing) tones in a language, whatever that language may be? Or is it something I really am going to need to take a class in a tonal language (probably Chinese?) to figure out?



* I have studied Japanese, which apparently does have a tonal aspect, but it was ignored through my several years of study. At most, I was told "don't worry about it, you'll figure it out"
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by shimobaatar »

Axiem wrote: * I have studied Japanese, which apparently does have a tonal aspect, but it was ignored through my several years of study. At most, I was told "don't worry about it, you'll figure it out"
It's not exactly tone, but it's not stress like in English either. This might be a good place to starting reading about prosody in Japanese, at least.
holbuzvala
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by holbuzvala »

@Axiem

Naturally, there are many tonal languages you could have a go with, like Chinese, Thai, Hausa etc. However, without any doubt the language with the most resources is Chinese. You can find loads online, and there are lots of free apps to do the same. If you really want to hear the tones, use a Pimsleur CD - it explains the tones as you go along, like a teach yourself audiobook (and perhaps expensive, but you can find it on the web if you know where to look).
Trebor
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Trebor »

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. = He1 saw him2.
He saw he. = He1 saw himself1.
Omzinesý wrote:With posessive pronouns it seems to be common. Hei broke hisi or j heart.
You raise another interesting issue. Apart from how English or French distinguish them, what other strategies do natlangs use to differentiate a pair of sentences like 'he1 broke his1 (own) eyeglasses' and 'he1 broke his2 eyeglasses'?
pittmirg
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by pittmirg »

I vaguely remember there was some obscure language in SW Asia (Iran or thereabouts) that was supposedly spoken only by men. Or at least there was some striking gender division in its usage. What was that?
if you can't decline it or conjugate it, piss on it.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Iyionaku »

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

Post by KaiTheHomoSapien »

Axiem wrote:Despite having studied several languages, I haven't yet studied one where tones are a central aspect*. However, I'm looking into at least one of my conlangs having tones be important, but I really have no good basis for where to start mentally on that—either in terms of how to even hear tones or how they're used.
I'm interested in tonal languages as well and possibly creating a tonal conlang. But I don't know if I can even pronounce tones properly, and I don't want to include anything in a conlang that I can't pronounce myself.

Having a pitch accent in my current conlang is already hard enough. I practice how to pronounce it often though [>_<]
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Frislander
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Frislander »

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.
I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Lardil's secret language Damin.
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All4Ɇn
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by All4Ɇn »

A language I'm working on has an instrumental-comitative case but does not have an abessive case. Are there any known languages that use a preposition equivalent to "without" and require nouns after it take an instrumental/comitative case?
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Lambuzhao
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Lambuzhao »

All4Ɇn wrote:A language I'm working on has an instrumental-comitative case but does not have an abessive case. Are there any known languages that use a preposition equivalent to "without" and require nouns after it take an instrumental/comitative case?
:wat:
Not exactly what you were looking for, but Tawala seems to use a negation marker + noun + comitative conjunction to render 'without' , q.v.

https://books.google.com/books?id=i3epJ ... ut&f=false

Do you have an Ablative case? Among other things, my :con: Rozwi uses that to for 'without' with a postposition, and also for objects of negative verbs, and in some cases, objects of Optative verbs. Also, Rozwi Subtraction uses the bare Ablative for the minuend.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3119&p=127378&hilit ... nd#p127379

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

Post by Omzinesý »

Lambuzhao wrote:
All4Ɇn wrote:A language I'm working on has an instrumental-comitative case but does not have an abessive case. Are there any known languages that use a preposition equivalent to "without" and require nouns after it take an instrumental/comitative case?
:wat:
Not exactly what you were looking for, but Tawala seems to use a negation marker + noun + comitative conjunction to render 'without' , q.v.
That could actually be an interesting case for analyses.
Should the gloss be: "NEG book-COM" or "without book-COM"?
What would the criteria be if that Negative marker/preposition doesn't appear in other constructions?
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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All4Ɇn
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by All4Ɇn »

Huh that's actually really cool with Tawala. Given that the language is a Romance language, an instrumental-commutative case is already pressing the limit so I'm not sure if saying something no meco is within the limits
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Ashtăr Balynestjăr »

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?
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