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

[Salmoneus]

Note: this sort of ambiguity (aunt/mother) already has a parallel in English, in words like 'mother' - which we disambiguate through terms like 'birth mother', 'foster mother', 'biological mother', 'genetic mother' and so on. I imagine that if a mother/aunt-merging culture needed to disambiguate, it would be easy enough to come up with similar terms - birth mother, house mother, first and other mother, big and small mother, left and right mother, etc.

[Lambuzhao]

Salmoneus' point reminds me of two things:

1) "baby momma" and "baby daddy", for one

2) My wife, in her form of Spanish, had this idiolectal solecism. When we were at home with the kids, she would refer to herself and expected the kids to call her "mami". Yet, in public, especially down in , she referred to herself and expected to be called by our kids "mami Luisa" (not her real name; just for example). In public, she always referred to herself with the epithet "mami" plus her name. She also used it with her own mother. She almost never used the word "abuela" ever to refer to her mom; always "mami Renee", and expected our kids to do the same.

To me this at first was confusing, then weird, then I just accepted it. The same thing went with me. When at home, she would refer to me as "papi", but in public (especially in Peru) I was to be called "papi Lambu" (well not my exact name, but you get the picture) by my kids, and she referred to me as "papi Lambu" in front of others to our kids. This did double duty as birth-father (for my son), and step-father (for my step-daughter).

I meant to ask her if anyone else was to be referred to in this way. My mom was "gremi" in Spanish, which came from grammie, her moniker. Aunts were referred to with "tia" and not "mami". again, I meant to ask her about this, but things got ugly between us, and that was that.

[Alomar]

I seem to remember there being a symbol to show that two phonetic realizations are in free variation with each other. And I think it might be ~.

So:

pillow
[phɪlɣ:oʊ] ~ [phɛlɣ:oʊ]
(at least in my region of the US)

Am I misremembering this?

[Click]

No, you aren't. The symbol for free variation is indeed ~.

[Keenir]

when they spoke of demigods (Hercules, etc)...what was the actual word the Ancient/Classical Greeks used?


thank you.

[Alomar]

I'm major dumb apparently. What is the difference between /ʟ/ and /ɫ/, that is the velar lateral approximant and the velarized alveolar lateral approximant. The recordings sound the same to me.

Thanks!

[Znex]

when they spoke of demigods (Hercules, etc)...what was the actual word the Ancient/Classical Greeks used?


thank you.

ἡμίθεος /hɛːmítʰeos/ <hēmítheos>

Literally meaning half-god.

[Shemtov]

Is there somewhere I can get a reconstructed Swadesh list for Proto-Pama-Nyugen and Proto-Dravidian?

[eldin raigmore]

Is there somewhere I can get a reconstructed Swadesh list for Proto-Pama-Nyugen and Proto-Dravidian?

My only available answer is the true but unhelpful "Probably there is somewhere you can get that, but I wouldn't know where.".

[Click]

Is there somewhere I can get a reconstructed Swadesh list for Proto-Pama-Nyugen and Proto-Dravidian?

A quick googling gives these two:

• Etymologies for many language families, including Dravidian.
  Proto-Pama-Nyungan Etyma

[Xonen]

I'm major dumb apparently. What is the difference between /ʟ/ and /ɫ/, that is the velar lateral approximant and the velarized alveolar lateral approximant.

Tongue position.

In /ʟ/, the tip of the tongue does nothing while the back of the tongue makes contact with the velum (with air passing by the sides). Like this:

Spoiler:

In /ɫ/, by contrast, the tip of the tongue makes contact with the alveolar ridge (with air passing by the sides), while the back is merely slightly raised towards the velum. Like this:

Spoiler:

[Egerius]

I'm major dumb apparently. What is the difference between /ʟ/ and /ɫ/, that is the velar lateral approximant and the velarized alveolar lateral approximant.

I am right to assess that nobody is "major dumb" over here, just requiring guidance to some extant? [Rhetoric question] (Awkward typo corrected )

[thetha]

Well dumb isn't such a nice word to call anybody, so yes, I'd say you're right to say that.

[Alomar]

Tongue position.

Thanks! Those pictures were crazy helpful.

[sangi39]

In languages that distinguish between animate and inanimate nouns, are body parts, either of animals or humans, classed with the animate nouns or the inanimate nouns, or is this something that's fairly language specific?

[eldin raigmore]

In languages that distinguish between animate and inanimate nouns, are body parts, either of animals or humans, classed with the animate nouns or the inanimate nouns, or is this something that's fairly language specific?

The latter.
For instance there is a language (don't have time to tell which right now) in which most of a person's body-parts are inanimate but some, that seem to have minds of their own, for instance the penis, are animate.

[Ànradh]

In languages that distinguish between animate and inanimate nouns, are body parts, either of animals or humans, classed with the animate nouns or the inanimate nouns, or is this something that's fairly language specific?

This is a motherfu-*ahem*

What eldin said, most definitely; I waded through a lot of stuff when I was deciding on Iriex's animacy paradigm and found languages where some body parts were inanimate and others were animate, some where none were animate (that I could find) and some where none were inanimate (that I could find).

[sangi39]

In languages that distinguish between animate and inanimate nouns, are body parts, either of animals or humans, classed with the animate nouns or the inanimate nouns, or is this something that's fairly language specific?

This is a motherfu-*ahem*

What eldin said, most definitely; I waded through a lot of stuff when I was deciding on Iriex's animacy paradigm and found languages where some body parts were inanimate and others were animate, some where none were animate (that I could find) and some where none were inanimate (that I could find).

This is hands down the best reply I've ever gotten online, ever. I can now die happy (online)

And now back on-topic, it's interesting to see that it's language specific. I've got a bit of room then

[Dormouse559]

How do natlangs deal with the concept of midnight? What I mean is, how does one know if "midnight on Monday" means "12 a.m. on Monday morning" or "12 a.m. on Tuesday morning"? At least to me, "midnight" as it's normally used in English is ambiguous, and some people in the media will specify both days involved when they use the word (for instance, "midnight on Monday night or Tuesday morning"). So yeah, what happens in other languages? Is it common for the term to be ambiguous, or is it better defined in other languages?

[eldin raigmore]

How do natlangs deal with the concept of midnight? What I mean is, how does one know if "midnight on Monday" means "12 a.m. on Monday morning" or "12 a.m. on Tuesday morning"? At least to me, "midnight" as it's normally used in English is ambiguous, and some people in the media will specify both days involved when they use the word (for instance, "midnight on Monday night or Tuesday morning"). So yeah, what happens in other languages? Is it common for the term to be ambiguous, or is it better defined in other languages?

Up through New Testament times most languages dealt with midnight by sleeping through it. There was no need to be specific about which part of the night one meant; just as Latin didn't bother to name the months of Winter at first, or even to divide winter into months. Winter was just something to hunker down and survive through until spring.

Some more modernish(?) natlangs have the "day" (the nycthemeron) beginning at dawn or at sunset, so there's no ambiguity about which "day" midnight belongs to; instead, there's ambiguity about either the dawn, or the sunset, depending on the language. Hebrew and Irish are examples, unless I am mistaken.

Modern astronomers (and perhaps earlier ones as well, for all I know) have the "day" starting and ending at noon, rather than at midnight. Unless they're studying the Sun, "seeing" usually starts around sundown (sometimes a bit before if they're studying the Moon or an "Evening Star"), and ends around sunup (sometimes a bit after if they're studying the Moon or a "Morning Star"). The dead center of the times an astronomer isn't going to see anything interesting is noon; so one might as well put the ambiguity about what "day" it is then.