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I'd disagree. Phonetically, as phonation is independent of articulation the duration of voicing relative to the duration of the various articulations can vary, and consequently you can have a whole range of different sounds in between a fully voiced or fully voiceless segment. Voice is often analysed as binary in phonology though.

You could possibly argue that a contrast between voiced, voiceless and aspirated phonemes, which occurs in several languages (Thai is an example, I think) is a contrast between three 'degrees of voicelessness' as the difference between the sounds is down to the voice onset time.

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Is there any language which has no true ditransitive verbs but instead forms them in some periphrastic manner?

Is there a correlation between noun classes and 3rd-person pronouns (should there be a personal pronoun corresopnding to each of the classes)?
Do they tend to be related in any way (the same roots/morphemes)?

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But I didn't know. Apparently I guessed right; thanks for clarifying!



I can't find anything about it online; did you look in Barry J. Blake's book "Case"? If so, did that help?

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Classical Greek, Classical Latin, and IIANM Classical Sanskrit, among other I-E languages of that age.
Also, the languages that M.H.Klaiman in his book "Grammatical Voice" typologizes* as having a "Basic Voice System"; Fula and Tamil are included.

*He mentions Basic Voice Systems (typically these are nearly the same as systems with a Middle Voice); Derived Voice Systems (where various participants are promoted into and/or demoted out of various morphosyntactically-assigned argument positions, as passivization demotes the Agent out of the Subject position and promotes the Patient into the Subject position); Inverse Voice Systems (typically those with a Hierarchical morphosyntactic alignment, also typically those with an obviative, but the overlap is not complete); and Information-Salience Voice Systems (where, rather than "what's the subject?", the question is either "what's the topic?" or "what's the focus?" or, for at least one language, both of those); and leaves open the possibility that there are other types, or languages that don't belong to a type, or, possibly (for all I can remember), languages that don't have Grammatical Voice.

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Yes. Or, at least, I'm sure there are some with no ditransitive verb-roots; and I think there may be some with no ditransitive verbs at all.



I'm not sure. See http://wals.info/chapter/105 and his references.

Joan Bybee (formerly Joan B. Hill) wrote a book on verb morphology, which may be the book I remember reading something like the following out of (but I could be wrong);

Every language has monovalent (one core argument) verb-roots, and every language has bivalent (two core arguments) verb-roots.
While most languages have many of both of those valencies, many have many more monovalent than bivalent verbs and many others have many more bivalent than monovalent verbs.
Many languages also have several trivalent (three core arguments) verb-roots. And a few have 0-valent or 4-valent verb-roots. But in all languages that have them, trivalent verb-roots are a small(ish) minority of the verb-roots; also 0-valent verb-roots if there are any, and 4-valent verb-roots if there are any, are always smallish minorities.

The most common morphology of verbs is valency-changing.

Some languages without trivalent verb-roots can nevertheless form trivalent verbs from bivalent roots by applying a valency-raising operation, such as causativization or "dative applicativization".

But IIRC there are some languages in which valency can't be raised beyond 2.

Anyway;
If you apply a valency-decreasing operation to a monovalent verb, the result is a 0-valent verb.

In some languages some valency-decreasing operations can be applied twice. For instance, both Turkish and Hindi allow "double passivization". If you do that to a bivalent verb you wind up with a 0-valent verb.

In some languages you can apply a valency-raising operation to a trivalent verb. If you do that, you wind up with a 4-valent verb.

In some languages, you can apply two different valency-raising operations (such as causativization and benefactive applicativization) to the same verb one after another; in some languages, you can apply the same valency-raising operation (such as causativization) twice to the same verb. (For instance, Hindi has "double causativization".)
If you do either of those to a bivalent verb, you wind up with a 4-valent verb.

I don't know of any language that allows you to raise valency higher than 4; or at least, none that has been so analyzed by any linguist who wasn't trying to debunk the whole idea of "valency".
I'm pretty sure some languages don't allow valency to be raised higher than 3; I imagine English might be one of them, depending on how you define your terms.
I'm only slightly less sure that some languages don't allow valency to be raised higher than 2.

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My first impulse was to look at http://wals.info/feature/combined/44A/43A. But, having done so, I don't know for certain that the answer is there; in fact I realized I'm not certain of the precise meaning of your question.

Most languages (254 out of 378 in their database) don't have any gender distinctions in independent personal pronouns.
Most that do have it only in 3rd person singular (61 out of 124 in their database) or only in 3rd person but in both 3rd singular and 3rd non-singular (42 out of 124).
Another 18 out of the 124 have gender distinctions in 3rd person and also in some other person.

http://wals.info/feature/combined/44A/30A shows that most languages don't have any gender at all; which, for at least 109 of those 254 languages that don't have gendered pronouns, explains that. But there are still at least 15 languages in their database that have genders but not gendered pronouns.

Weirdly, they list 5 languages that don't have genders but do have gendered pronouns. I don't know what the deal is with that. Maybe you should write to them and ask them.

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Like English, maybe? English doesn't have genders, but does have three different gendered pronouns: he, she and it.

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Aaaaand this is why I removed Latin from my sig'. For a language I claim to be dabbling in, my ignorance of its characteristics is astounding. :p
But yes, thanks for the info'.

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I am creating a conworld, which I refer to as the Carrion Series, that will contain three languages, Iriex, Dvoen and Maxna.

Yes, I didn't think of that. No, you're right, and as I said as well: in respect to phonation there can be different degrees of stricture of the glottis even as phonemes.

But still, even though you could argue that voiced, voiceless and aspirated phonemes is a contrast between three 'degrees of voicelessness', I've never heard it described that way. And now we're not talking about voiced as modal voice, but as vibration of the vocal folds (in relation to VOT). And that is possible even with more spread glottis than the modal stricture. The possibility here for different degrees lies in periodic vs. non-periodic vibrations, I think. But I can't see how that could be utilized phonemically, though.

I don't know. Maybe the chapter texts will explain it.
The languages they mark that way in their database are Carib, Burmese, Kilivila, Mandarin, and Persian.

I think they count English, and other languages whose only vestige of agreement with gender is the agreement of anaphoric pronouns, as languages that do have gender. This is why I think that:

(All emphasis was added by me.)

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How do you guys feel about the claims that Korean and Japanese are related?

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I believe that current socio-political as well as historical conflict between the two peoples is what keeps the two languages from being considered related.

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If the two languages do happen to be related, the relationship extends too far back in time for it to be readily apparent. The current evidence in favour of such a grouping is still very minimal and subject to debate.

It is a quick question, how common is the H in languages? I tried on WALS but couldnt find that feature.

Modicone: Quick questions fit nicely in the quick question threads.

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I don't know how common H is, but UPSID lists /h/ for 61.86% of its languages.

Assuming you meant the IPA's [ʜ], which is a voiceless epiglottal fricative, the only information I have is from Wikipedia, which says it occurs in Agul, in Dahalo, and in Haida.


Or possibly you meant the Z-SAMPA labiopalatal approximant. The IPA symbol is [ɥ]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labio-palatal_approximant#Occurrence says it occurs in Abkhaz, Mandarin, Korean, and French.


Looking in UPSID at the labiopalatal approximant ([H] in Z-SAMPA), the voiced labiopalatal fricative ([H_r] in Z-SAMPA), and the voiceless epiglottal fricative ([H\] in Z-SAMPA), I find UPSID has information only on the voiced labiopalatal approximant:



Likely you didn't mean the voiceless pharyngeal fricative denoted by [ħ] in IPA, by [X\] in Z-SAMPA, and by [H] in Kirshenbaum's notation and in UPSID's notation. Nevertheless:

and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_pharyngeal_fricative#Occurrence shows it occurring in 15 languages.

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It also occurs in Chechen, depending on your analysis of the language.

Is there a kind soul that could to translate for me the lyrics of this song?

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Into what target language? English? Polish?
(And btw what's the source language? Obviously I'm not one of the kind souls you were looking for.)

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Here are the lyrics in original, i.e. mixed Japanese-English. The whole English translation would be favourable.

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Here's what Google Translate gives; obviously it's pretty bad and not what you want, but it should give a hint about the gist.

The end of the dream sweet chocolate melted on the tongue of a grain
Whatever happens Don't forget to taste will surely give up outro.

Slowly losing everyday discursive Glowly Day by day
Dramatically exciting and every day I put cracks tedious repetition of that!
Once it was the best of school personnel or travel behavior have gone good boyfriend sacrifice housework per mast orientation
Mom said, well, right? Selfish it would ｰｰｰ N.
Standing "of life because you're not" know I put up with such favor Bakkari!
Next to go when you're done sucking talent so shiny
I also have difficulty in those cans, nothing bad, nothing Sawa Chan!

The end of the dream sweet chocolate melted on the tongue of a grain
Whatever happens Don't forget to taste will surely give up outro.

I think better than to keep replay end roll humble Out control
Everything I know do not want to hear yesterday unexpected surely go back.
Just love her contract, no contract, sure enough after all
Retreat was a little wider, and the residual heat left you, I think

Story of passing each other farewell meeting Can't stay without you, there are no more what I had spent all the time even?

The end of the dream sweet chocolate melted on the tongue of a grain
I disproportionate happy words I know that I'm never gonna change.
The end of the dream sweet chocolate melted on the tongue of a grain
Whatever happens Don't forget to taste will surely give up outro.

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I am not responsible for the accuracy of my sources; they're responsible for their own mistakes, if any, and also responsible for defending their own statements if you disagree with them.

Can you remember where you read that claim? It'd be a very interesting development if it was true.

It'd be interesting if anyone was aware of other "unusual" systems for vowel realisation. Like:
–A lang without rounded vowels.
–A lang without open vowels (no [a ɑ ɒ], or perhaps any other a-like vowel.)
–A lang without close vowels (no [i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u])
-Other unusual gaps on the level of phonetic realisation.

(Remember that we are speaking about the actual phonetic realisations, not merely the underlying phonemes.)

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