Search found 300 matches

by Jonlang
Sat Jun 09, 2018 4:20 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Re: Third-person imperatives - how do they work?
Replies: 3
Views: 5501

Third-person imperatives - how do they work?

Second person imperatives are pretty simple and I'm told that English first person plural imperative is basically the construction "let's X", but what about third person? I'm struggling to think of something which sounds like a third person imperative.
by Jonlang
Mon Apr 23, 2018 10:34 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlearn
Replies: 669
Views: 149394

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Ryusenshi wrote:For a long time, I thought fuzz had the FOOT vowel.
It probably does somewhere in the north of England, like Manchester and maybe Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
by Jonlang
Wed Apr 18, 2018 8:20 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Cambridge Uni's linguistics articles free until 30 Apr
Replies: 2
Views: 3755

Cambridge Uni's linguistics articles free until 30 Apr

Cambridge University's Theoretical Linguistics Collection is available for free until 30th April 2018.
by Jonlang
Wed Mar 28, 2018 11:12 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: deriving conlangs, generally
Replies: 11
Views: 8318

Re: deriving conlangs, generally

I start with a phonetic inventory of the language I want to make. Then I find out realistic ways for those sounds, in the clusters I want, to occur. I then use this to come up with a phonetic inventory for a proto-lang, which is usually a fair bit larger than its daughter langs. For building words I...
by Jonlang
Mon Feb 19, 2018 5:44 am
Forum: None of the above
Topic: British Sitcoms
Replies: 35
Views: 14852

Re: British Sitcoms

Kay's a talented performer, but I haven't looked at him the same since Rufus Hound savaged him (and Northern comedians generally) on NMtB with the line, "If you like that sort of thing [i.e. gentle observational comedy], go and watch Peter Kay; he's brilliant at remembering ." (In fact, Kay had wor...
by Jonlang
Mon Feb 19, 2018 5:35 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: How should I assign gender to words?
Replies: 10
Views: 7380

Re: How should I assign gender to words?

Not all verbs will I assign gender to. For example linking verbs like is or looks will not be assigned gender because they are used to link the subject to the action verb or to adjectives and adverbs. OK, firstly verbs don't have "gender", because that is a feature of nouns. They can agree with the...
by Jonlang
Wed Feb 07, 2018 5:58 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Good syntax books
Replies: 32
Views: 15971

Re: Good syntax books

The only one I've used is Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists by Thomas E. Payne.
by Jonlang
Sat Jan 27, 2018 1:17 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Questions about inflected prepositions
Replies: 12
Views: 7977

Re: Questions about inflected prepositions

But how did they form? Why did people start sticking bits onto them? How did i start becoming iddo or iddi , for example? Or did it? If Welsh i comes from Proto-Celtic *de then maybe the inflections were always there and i just got shortened again and again? Literally, they're just from sequences o...
by Jonlang
Sat Jan 27, 2018 12:00 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Questions about inflected prepositions
Replies: 12
Views: 7977

Re: Questions about inflected prepositions

But how did they form? Why did people start sticking bits onto them? How did i start becoming iddo or iddi , for example? Or did it? If Welsh i comes from Proto-Celtic *de then maybe the inflections were always there and i just got shortened again and again? Literally, they're just from sequences o...
by Jonlang
Sat Jan 27, 2018 8:55 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Questions about inflected prepositions
Replies: 12
Views: 7977

Questions about inflected prepositions

Basically, my question is where do they come from? Or where can they come from? Using Welsh as the example, it has many inflected prepositions which I cannot find any etymological information for, only for the base form, i.e. the preposition i comes from Proto-Celtic *de ; o comes from Proto-Celtic ...
by Jonlang
Tue Oct 24, 2017 1:30 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Conlangery Print Resource List
Replies: 2
Views: 1627

Re: Conlangery Print Resource List

David Salo's A Gateway to Sindarin is a very good grammar of Tolkien's Sindarin language (y'know... the Elvish spoken in The Lord of the Rings ). It is, however, a grammar of his Neo-Sindarin used for the movies, but regardless of that, it's a very good document of a conlang. - especially for people...
by Jonlang
Mon Oct 23, 2017 10:15 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Vowel deletion in adjectives only?
Replies: 9
Views: 4207

Re: Vowel deletion in adjectives only?

Seeing as adjectives all end in long vowels, could I easily just delete final long vowels? Nouns can end in long or short vowels so all of the short-vowel nouns would remain.
by Jonlang
Mon Oct 23, 2017 9:04 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Vowel deletion in adjectives only?
Replies: 9
Views: 4207

Vowel deletion in adjectives only?

One of my conlangs has a vast amount of words ending in vowels, due all proto-words ending in vowels. Is it at all plausible that final vowels are ditched in adjectives only?
by Jonlang
Tue Oct 17, 2017 1:19 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: "If X were to..."
Replies: 3
Views: 1691

"If X were to..."

Is there a grammatical case for "If X were to..."? I ask because Welsh has a specific way of saying things like "If I (were to) go, you would stay": "taswn i'n mynd, baset ti'n aros" (I think... if I have remembered correctly), where "taswn" means "if I were to" and "baset" means "you would". If "ba...
by Jonlang
Sun Oct 15, 2017 4:28 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Why don't British singers sing with a British accent?
Replies: 15
Views: 5085

Re: Why don't British singers sing with a British accent?

Why is it that British singers such as the Beatles don't sing with a British accent? Cerys Matthews, Max Boyce, Syd Barrett, David Gilmour, Roger Waters, David Bowie, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, The Proclaimers, Sting, Johnny Rotten, Chas & Dave, Kate Bush - all British...
by Jonlang
Thu Sep 14, 2017 9:52 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: I've just discovered the Nuxalk language
Replies: 6
Views: 3198

Re: I've just discovered the Nuxalk language

(Don't take this personally, Jonlang, but:) I hate that example sentence. It's a meme. It's the only thing anyone ever says about Bella Coola. Sure, whatever, it's technically a licit word in the language (Nater, Bella Coola Language , page 5)-- I don't care, but it's not at all representative of t...
by Jonlang
Tue Sep 05, 2017 4:38 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlearn
Replies: 669
Views: 149394

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

I used to think that "bow", as in "bow down", is pronounced something like "boh". For ages, I thought that English people had /roːz/, not /rauz/. I still have to correct my mental pronunciation sometimes. For what word? "Row" as in "argument"? Is there another kind of "row" you people can "have"? I...
by Jonlang
Tue Sep 05, 2017 4:34 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Words you've learned recently
Replies: 248
Views: 79872

Re: Words you've learned recently

Magu /ˈma.giː/ "to bring up a child/children".

I love this word. The first time I came across it was on the Say Something in Welsh course recently.
by Jonlang
Wed Aug 23, 2017 5:08 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: I've just discovered the Nuxalk language
Replies: 6
Views: 3198

I've just discovered the Nuxalk language

This probably isn't new to some of you, but I just stumbled upon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuxalk_language . This language look absolutely bonkers to my eye! Here's an example from the Wikipedia article: clhp'xwlhtlhplhhskwts' /xɬpʼχʷɬtʰɬpʰɬːskʷʰt͡sʼ/ Then he had had in his possession a bunchber...
by Jonlang
Mon Aug 14, 2017 4:59 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Words you've learned recently
Replies: 248
Views: 79872

Re: Words you've learned recently

I would find unclockwise less disintuitive. Personally, I'd like clocky and unclocky . I'm using "clocky" and "unclocky" from now on! Besides, clockiness is confusing, because as the famous observation (Turing? Or one of his colleagues? can't remember) goes, clocks actually run anticlockwise. Not t...
by Jonlang
Mon Aug 14, 2017 1:49 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Words you've learned recently
Replies: 248
Views: 79872

Re: Words you've learned recently

Salmoneus wrote:
linguoboy wrote:anticlockwise

y u brits gotta have ur wn word 4 evrything u not so specil
woah! What do Americans call it, then? Presumably not still widdershins?
Counterclockwise. Which I find to be anti-intuitive.
by Jonlang
Tue Aug 08, 2017 3:56 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
Replies: 3108
Views: 639772

Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

KathTheDragon wrote:/ˈdʒægjʉ.ə/ for me
More or less the same for me, except it's probably more like /ˈdʒægɪu̯.ə/ in my Welshy accent.
by Jonlang
Thu Aug 03, 2017 11:01 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Celtica sine mutationibus
Replies: 10
Views: 3029

Re: Celtica sine mutationibus

If the Language Deity issued a decree that initial mutations in the Celtic languages were henceforward prohibited, how much damage would actually be done? Well no one would heed it. I mean, the mutations aren't really optional. People (in speech) mutate naturally, because they're used to doing it. ...
by Jonlang
Fri Jul 14, 2017 4:14 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: What language is this?
Replies: 12
Views: 4301

Re: What language is this?

It's Welsh sung by someone who has no idea how Welsh should sound...
by Jonlang
Wed Apr 05, 2017 11:08 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: How to convince an ENG teacher that there aren't 6 Tenses
Replies: 48
Views: 11215

Re: How to convince an ENG teacher that there aren't 6 Tense

My English teacher told me that there are 6 tenses in English: Past, Present, Future , Past Perfect, Present Perfect, and Future Perfect . English doesn't even have a proper future tense though, does it? We can only put things in the future by saying "will" or "shall", but English verbs have no fut...