Search found 88 matches
- Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:25 am
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: The surname Nuppenau
- Replies: 60
- Views: 9956
- Mon Jun 28, 2010 9:54 am
- Forum: None of the above
- Topic: ZBB member photos, part 5. (Something for the weekend, sir?)
- Replies: 5496
- Views: 774926
- Sat Jun 19, 2010 10:51 pm
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: postpositional phrases
- Replies: 8
- Views: 6103
Not exactly the same, but similar. Chinese has relational nouns which come after the noun - in front of him is 在他的前面: 在-他的-前.面 locative preposition - his - front side. These relational nouns also need an adjectival/genitive particle to modify another noun - "the building in front" 前面的楼 前面-的-楼 front ...
- Sat Jun 12, 2010 9:00 pm
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: resources
- Replies: 722
- Views: 310331
This site http://www.chinese-forums.com/vocabulary/ is quite good. It is a searchable database of vocabulary items from the first 4 levels of the HSK (the standard exam of Chinese proficiency). You can search based on all kinds of criteria: the tone patterns of the words (ie all the words which are ...
- Tue Jun 01, 2010 4:11 am
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: PIE gender
- Replies: 24
- Views: 7659
Occam's Razor has to apply to all the relevant data. There are a number of indications that Proto-Anatolian split off first so it's quite possible that PA never had the feminine because it was a common development after PA split. If we likewise assume that Proto-Celtic didn't have a neuter then we'...
- Thu May 27, 2010 8:12 pm
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: Is the core - oblique distinction universal?
- Replies: 24
- Views: 13020
In fact, there's a lot of debate about this. It is true that most non-trigger arguments are marked identically from a case point of view, but there are arguments that actually there are some processes in Tagalog and other Phillipine languages which are controlled by the Agent/Subject even when it I...
- Wed May 26, 2010 11:10 pm
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: Is the core - oblique distinction universal?
- Replies: 24
- Views: 13020
ow can Tagalog be analyzed as having only one MAP? (Might be a good example of the kind I requested above... if only it works.) AFAIK (and I've been meaning to quiz my Fillipino friends on this for a while now), all nouns except for the trigger appear in the genitive, regardless of whether they wou...
- Mon May 24, 2010 8:52 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Shanghainese
- Replies: 20
- Views: 5696
I speak Mandarin and a little Cantonese, and the counter words in both tend to be assigned according to shape of the noun, and secondarily function (there's a counter for machines, one for things with handles). Chinese languages in general don't mark tense, only aspect. I always forget which of s` s...
- Mon May 24, 2010 8:22 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Shanghainese
- Replies: 20
- Views: 5696
Interesting! Shangahinese has \ps`\ as on onset? Wow. In the section about Counter words, you say you have little clue as to their distribution. The ones you list as a,b,c,d,h all seem to have direct cognates with the usual Mandarin and Cantonese ones: a: k@, used for people and as a default for any...
- Mon May 24, 2010 9:22 am
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: resources
- Replies: 722
- Views: 310331
- Sun May 23, 2010 5:41 pm
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: resources
- Replies: 722
- Views: 310331
Well yes, but a blind man on a galloping horse could see that link wasn't complete and just copy and paste it, which takes only slightly more effort than clicking it. Nevermind :) http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/bitstream/1892/8157/1/b17745755.pdf A PhD thesis with a discussin of lots of different systems for ...
- Sun May 23, 2010 12:17 am
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: resources
- Replies: 722
- Views: 310331
- Sat May 22, 2010 9:03 am
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: resources
- Replies: 722
- Views: 310331
A grammar, complete with cultural notes and photographs, of Galo, a Tibeto-Burman language from North India http://victoria.linguistlist.org/~lapolla/downloads/Post_PhD_A_Grammar_of_Galo_As_Submitted.pdf Nominalization in Tibeto-Burman languages http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/lin/nomz/nomz%20pdf%20(final)/(...
- Wed May 19, 2010 9:49 am
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: VO -> OV, prepositions -> postpositions?
- Replies: 15
- Views: 5316
VO -> OV, prepositions -> postpositions?
Say a language had relatively free word order - unmarked SVO, but also OSV, SOV (object can be fronted to topicalise/emphasise it, or put verb final for another special reason) and prepositions. Later the word order shifts to fixed verb final order. What would happen to the prepositions? Verb final ...
- Wed May 19, 2010 8:37 am
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: North African langs during the Roman Empire
- Replies: 15
- Views: 5107
Maybe I am being unusually crap. but all I can find on phoenician is a phoneme list on wikipedia, and mentions of a detailed book that I am in no position to buy. I'm toying with the idea of having it developed from Classical Latin instead. The internal reason perhaps would be that it was Classical ...
- Wed May 19, 2010 3:16 am
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: North African langs during the Roman Empire
- Replies: 15
- Views: 5107
North African langs during the Roman Empire
What languages were spoken in the Roman Empire in north Africa during and at the end of the Roman Empire? I've tried googling but I'm not getting anywhere. I was just reading an article about creating romlangs, and it occurred to me that a North African one with influence from African langs might be...
- Thu May 13, 2010 6:39 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Negating a negative
- Replies: 13
- Views: 4687
But keep in mind that our penchant for using double-negation for affirmation in English is a language-specific rhetorical device (or at most an areal feature in W. Europe), and not, in general, something you would expect speakers of Randomlanguage to have a close analog for. I'm sceptical of that. ...
- Thu May 13, 2010 6:51 am
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Negating a negative
- Replies: 13
- Views: 4687
I don't know, but I would guess (and I've been thinking about it for my conlang) you could maybe express it in two clauses: it was nothing that I didn't see. Or perhaps they just don't use that structure: we use it in English for emphasis (apart from when it is direct negation of anotehr person's st...
- Fri Apr 30, 2010 3:09 am
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Japanese Case marking
- Replies: 12
- Views: 4675
- Sun Apr 25, 2010 12:39 am
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Automatic Language Identification
- Replies: 26
- Views: 8747
- Sat Apr 24, 2010 3:17 am
- Forum: None of the above
- Topic: ZBB member photos, part 5. (Something for the weekend, sir?)
- Replies: 5496
- Views: 774926
The ONLY thing in the entire WORLD that actually requires a fork to be eaten properly is spaghetti. Everything else can be easily eaten with fingers, spoon, knife or chopsticks. Requires? Not at all. Spaghetti can be eaten quite easily with chopsticks (there's quite a lot of noodle eaters in the Ch...
- Fri Apr 23, 2010 11:52 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Automatic Language Identification
- Replies: 26
- Views: 8747
- Thu Apr 22, 2010 6:39 am
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: Simple phoneme inventories and syllable structures
- Replies: 25
- Views: 7569
It could just be that Polynesian is just a relatively conservative family. (IE has one of those too: Baltic.) There are some pretty interesting Austro nesian langs out there: Malagasy, Nias, and Javanese are the three that I can think of, but there are probably a lot more. Or am I getting the time ...
- Thu Apr 22, 2010 4:14 am
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: Simple phoneme inventories and syllable structures
- Replies: 25
- Views: 7569
Something I thought about recently due to a conlang: Is it true that CV syllable language change slowly? Ie they undergo fewer soundchanges per unit time. Example: Polynesian languages (Maori, Samoan, Niuea, Tongan, Fijian, Hawaiian) split 2,000 years ago - before the Romance languages did - but hav...
- Thu Apr 22, 2010 4:00 am
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: Particles, postpositions and suffixes
- Replies: 5
- Views: 2469
Particles, postpositions and suffixes
Recently I have got myself a little confused. What is th differecnes between adpositions (prepositions and postpositions) and affixes (prefixes and suffixes)? Obviously I know the obvious answer (that's the key thing about it being obvious) "adpositions are words and affixes are parts of words," but...