Search found 88 matches

by Tengado
Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:25 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The surname Nuppenau
Replies: 60
Views: 9848

Possibly - Americans do seem to have reduced the /j/ out of words like stupid and new (where in Britain we don't), but then again not by palatalising the consonant, so it could just be coincidence.
by Tengado
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: 764596

Skomakar'n wrote:Image
It looks like the hair is smothering your head....
by Tengado
Sat Jun 19, 2010 10:51 pm
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: postpositional phrases
Replies: 8
Views: 5877

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 ...
by Tengado
Sat Jun 12, 2010 9:00 pm
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: resources
Replies: 722
Views: 306497

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 ...
by Tengado
Tue Jun 01, 2010 4:11 am
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: PIE gender
Replies: 24
Views: 7206

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'...
by Tengado
Thu May 27, 2010 8:12 pm
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: Is the core - oblique distinction universal?
Replies: 24
Views: 12767

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...
by Tengado
Wed May 26, 2010 11:10 pm
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: Is the core - oblique distinction universal?
Replies: 24
Views: 12767

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...
by Tengado
Mon May 24, 2010 8:52 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Shanghainese
Replies: 20
Views: 5634

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...
by Tengado
Mon May 24, 2010 8:22 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Shanghainese
Replies: 20
Views: 5634

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...
by Tengado
Mon May 24, 2010 9:22 am
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: resources
Replies: 722
Views: 306497

Sthg's wrong with that Miwok link - I tried opening the webpage and downlaoding it; neitehr work. Safari says it's probably a corrupt file.
by Tengado
Sun May 23, 2010 5:41 pm
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: resources
Replies: 722
Views: 306497

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 ...
by Tengado
Sun May 23, 2010 12:17 am
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: resources
Replies: 722
Views: 306497

Was that really helpful? Surely explanations of what is in the links is better than just a list of links? And was there any point in reposting the same links?
by Tengado
Sat May 22, 2010 9:03 am
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: resources
Replies: 722
Views: 306497

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)/(...
by Tengado
Wed May 19, 2010 9:49 am
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: VO -> OV, prepositions -> postpositions?
Replies: 15
Views: 5145

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 ...
by Tengado
Wed May 19, 2010 8:37 am
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: North African langs during the Roman Empire
Replies: 15
Views: 5022

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 ...
by Tengado
Wed May 19, 2010 3:16 am
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: North African langs during the Roman Empire
Replies: 15
Views: 5022

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...
by Tengado
Thu May 13, 2010 6:39 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Negating a negative
Replies: 13
Views: 4660

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. ...
by Tengado
Thu May 13, 2010 6:51 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Negating a negative
Replies: 13
Views: 4660

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...
by Tengado
Fri Apr 30, 2010 3:09 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Japanese Case marking
Replies: 12
Views: 4640

Berek wrote:
phoenix wrote: It kinda did the opposite. Although I now know why we have hitobito but not **tabidabi.
Isn't it something like ... you never get rendaku after a syllable with a voiced stop?
I think it is if the syllable already has a voiced stop - there can be only one
by Tengado
Sun Apr 25, 2010 12:39 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Automatic Language Identification
Replies: 26
Views: 8651

Everything seems to get either Bosnian/Serbian or Tagalog/Cebuan.
by Tengado
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: 764596

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...
by Tengado
Fri Apr 23, 2010 11:52 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Automatic Language Identification
Replies: 26
Views: 8651

Fun. A sentence from my conlang ”wa omo do ki beme ngi tena hadi gagawabe tobeteodo yoda ga we'a kiga po'afongo hayafo“ came out as Swahili or Cebuano, Tagalog or Serbo-Croatian. Interesting. I was worried about it sounding like Japanese.
by Tengado
Thu Apr 22, 2010 6:39 am
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: Simple phoneme inventories and syllable structures
Replies: 25
Views: 7510

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 ...
by Tengado
Thu Apr 22, 2010 4:14 am
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: Simple phoneme inventories and syllable structures
Replies: 25
Views: 7510

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...
by Tengado
Thu Apr 22, 2010 4:00 am
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: Particles, postpositions and suffixes
Replies: 5
Views: 2453

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...