Search found 300 matches
- Sat Jun 09, 2018 4:20 am
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Re: Third-person imperatives - how do they work?
- Replies: 3
- Views: 5903
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.
- Mon Apr 23, 2018 10:34 am
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlearn
- Replies: 669
- Views: 156985
Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea
It probably does somewhere in the north of England, like Manchester and maybe Newcastle-upon-Tyne.Ryusenshi wrote:For a long time, I thought fuzz had the FOOT vowel.
- Wed Apr 18, 2018 8:20 am
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Cambridge Uni's linguistics articles free until 30 Apr
- Replies: 2
- Views: 4155
Cambridge Uni's linguistics articles free until 30 Apr
Cambridge University's Theoretical Linguistics Collection is available for free until 30th April 2018.
- Wed Mar 28, 2018 11:12 am
- Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
- Topic: deriving conlangs, generally
- Replies: 11
- Views: 8886
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...
- Mon Feb 19, 2018 5:44 am
- Forum: None of the above
- Topic: British Sitcoms
- Replies: 35
- Views: 15722
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...
- Mon Feb 19, 2018 5:35 am
- Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
- Topic: How should I assign gender to words?
- Replies: 10
- Views: 7953
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...
- Wed Feb 07, 2018 5:58 am
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Good syntax books
- Replies: 32
- Views: 16812
Re: Good syntax books
The only one I've used is Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists by Thomas E. Payne.
- Sat Jan 27, 2018 1:17 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Questions about inflected prepositions
- Replies: 12
- Views: 8284
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...
- Sat Jan 27, 2018 12:00 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Questions about inflected prepositions
- Replies: 12
- Views: 8284
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...
- Sat Jan 27, 2018 8:55 am
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Questions about inflected prepositions
- Replies: 12
- Views: 8284
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 ...
- Tue Oct 24, 2017 1:30 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Conlangery Print Resource List
- Replies: 2
- Views: 1683
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...
- Mon Oct 23, 2017 10:15 am
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Vowel deletion in adjectives only?
- Replies: 9
- Views: 4404
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.
- Mon Oct 23, 2017 9:04 am
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Vowel deletion in adjectives only?
- Replies: 9
- Views: 4404
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?
- Tue Oct 17, 2017 1:19 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: "If X were to..."
- Replies: 3
- Views: 1741
"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...
- Sun Oct 15, 2017 4:28 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Why don't British singers sing with a British accent?
- Replies: 15
- Views: 5533
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...
- Thu Sep 14, 2017 9:52 am
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: I've just discovered the Nuxalk language
- Replies: 6
- Views: 3290
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...
- Tue Sep 05, 2017 4:38 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlearn
- Replies: 669
- Views: 156985
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...
- Tue Sep 05, 2017 4:34 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Words you've learned recently
- Replies: 248
- Views: 83863
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.
I love this word. The first time I came across it was on the Say Something in Welsh course recently.
- Wed Aug 23, 2017 5:08 am
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: I've just discovered the Nuxalk language
- Replies: 6
- Views: 3290
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...
- Mon Aug 14, 2017 4:59 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Words you've learned recently
- Replies: 248
- Views: 83863
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...
- Mon Aug 14, 2017 1:49 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Words you've learned recently
- Replies: 248
- Views: 83863
Re: Words you've learned recently
Counterclockwise. Which I find to be anti-intuitive.Salmoneus wrote:woah! What do Americans call it, then? Presumably not still widdershins?linguoboy wrote:anticlockwise
y u brits gotta have ur wn word 4 evrything u not so specil
- Tue Aug 08, 2017 3:56 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
- Replies: 3108
- Views: 665473
Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
More or less the same for me, except it's probably more like /ˈdʒægɪu̯.ə/ in my Welshy accent.KathTheDragon wrote:/ˈdʒægjʉ.ə/ for me
- Thu Aug 03, 2017 11:01 am
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Celtica sine mutationibus
- Replies: 10
- Views: 3095
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. ...
- Fri Jul 14, 2017 4:14 am
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: What language is this?
- Replies: 12
- Views: 4396
Re: What language is this?
It's Welsh sung by someone who has no idea how Welsh should sound...
- 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: 11555
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...