Search found 90 matches

by Alces
Thu Mar 01, 2018 3:31 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
Replies: 3108
Views: 639971

Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Europe /"jO:r@p/
Uranus /j@"rejn@s/
your anus /j@"rejn@s/ (identical with Uranus) or, when speaking more carefully, /jO:"rejn@s/
by Alces
Fri Jun 09, 2017 3:38 am
Forum: None of the above
Topic: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election
Replies: 323
Views: 93355

Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

During the last general election in 2015 the SNP got the most votes in almost all of the 59 Westminster parliamentary constituencies in Scotland. There were just three exceptions---a border constituency which was held by the Tories, a seat in Edinburgh which was held by Labour, and the Northern Isle...
by Alces
Wed Oct 05, 2016 12:02 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meanings
Replies: 313
Views: 109042

Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

An ort is a leftover scrap of food. The word may be derived from the English cognate of the German prefix Ur- added to a reduced form of the word eat.
by Alces
Tue Aug 23, 2016 12:12 pm
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: resources
Replies: 722
Views: 306637

Re: resources

Carib grammar by Hendrik Courtz.
by Alces
Tue Aug 23, 2016 12:04 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 448381

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Oh, right! See, I did look at the translation, but I was thinking of the whole phrase "big load" as the translation of the single word *méǵh₂m̥. This, I guess, is why word-by-word glosses are helpful :) I was also thrown off by the ellipsis of *bʰered 'carrying' in that clause (which I'm guessing oc...
by Alces
Tue Aug 23, 2016 8:53 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 448381

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

I'm trying to understand Byrd's translation of Schleicher's fable, and I'm puzzled by the word *bʰórom which appears in the sentence "só gʷr̥hₓúm u̯óǵʰom u̯eǵʰed; só méǵh₂m̥ bʰórom ; só dʰǵʰémonm̥ h₂ṓḱu bʰered." The first and third clauses are simple; *u̯eǵʰed and *bʰered are 3sg. past active indica...
by Alces
Mon Aug 15, 2016 10:30 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 448381

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

What I've seen being speculated is that *-om was a particle that had several uses, inter alia meaning something being in a relationship with something else, whence it's use in the Gen. Pl., and that in the neuters it was firstly a derivational suffix (e.g. *yug-om "related to / used for coupling / ...
by Alces
Mon Aug 15, 2016 8:43 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 448381

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

I have a question (or several questions): what's the origin of Sanskrit ahám 'I'? Ringe (2006) reconstructs the PIE nom. 1sg. pronoun as *égh₂, and the only reason I can see why the final laryngeal might be reconstructed is so that áham can be derived from *égh₂-om. In that case, *-om could be the t...
by Alces
Mon Aug 15, 2016 8:32 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 448381

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Well, the root is attested in Indo-Iranian, Greek, Albanian and Italic as well. It's just that Celtic and Germanic are the only ones which attest to the presence of the *w-.
by Alces
Mon Aug 15, 2016 8:00 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 448381

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

There's the widely-attested nominal stem *wréh₂d- 'root', with *wr- reflected in Welsh gwraidd and Irish fréamh, and the *w- of the oblique stem *wr̥h₂d- reflected in Goth. waúrts, ON urt, OE wyrt (> NE wort), OHG wurz.
by Alces
Sat Aug 13, 2016 10:21 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Aspiration and VOT: Some questions
Replies: 9
Views: 3384

Re: Aspiration and VOT: Some questions

It's true that voiced aspiration is just breathy voice. But breathy voice is a related phenomenon to aspiration, and it therefore makes sense for voiced aspirated stops to be referred to as such. To aspirate a voiceless stop which is immediately before a vowel, you keep the voicelessness going for l...
by Alces
Thu Aug 11, 2016 1:27 pm
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: resources
Replies: 722
Views: 306637

Re: resources

Does anybody have a link to Lehmann's A Grammar of Proto-Germanic ? It seems to have been either moved from its old location at http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/books/pgmc00.html or deleted altogether. I can't find any of the other historical linguistics books that used to be available on UT A...
by Alces
Sun Aug 07, 2016 5:35 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Question about vocal cords/voicing
Replies: 2
Views: 2238

Re: Question about vocal cords/voicing

My understanding of it is that the vocal folds are apart when the laryngeal muscles are relaxed, so that only voiceless sounds can be produced. Maybe it's also possible to hold them further apart by contracting some of the muscles, I don't know. But at the other extreme, if the glottis is held firml...
by Alces
Sun Jun 12, 2016 10:31 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Hapax Phonoumena
Replies: 36
Views: 10522

Re: Hapax Phonoumena

Amuzgo has a syllabic, prenasalized, voiced velarized bilabial trill which appears exclusively in the word [ʃa˥m̩ˠʙˠ˥] 'antlion'. (The only other phonemic syllabic consonant is /n̩/, which can be pronounced with any place of articulation, or as a lateral, depending on the consonants that follow it....
by Alces
Sat Mar 05, 2016 5:16 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlearn
Replies: 669
Views: 149554

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

Final e in German names here are traditionally pronounced /i/. That reminds me of something I've been wondering about. In the US, German names with <oe> are generally pronounced /oʊ/, because of orthography. But why are German names in <oe (ö)> /œ/ pronounced /ɚ/ in English (viz., Goethe /gɚtə/, Go...
by Alces
Fri Oct 09, 2015 6:04 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meanings
Replies: 313
Views: 109042

Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Ooh, here's a good one: ked is a word used to refer to certain species of parasitic flies of the family Hipposcobidae. One of them, Melophagus ovinus , is a common parasite of sheep, which is presumably how it has ended up with a common English name. The word is attested from the 16th century, and h...
by Alces
Thu Sep 17, 2015 3:12 pm
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: resources
Replies: 722
Views: 306637

Re: resources

by Alces
Sun Aug 23, 2015 8:09 pm
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: resources
Replies: 722
Views: 306637

Re: resources

The writers of the Tumblr blog The Qwanqwa Project have uploaded a drive with lots of resources on African languages, including, for example, a grammar of Modern South Arabian.
by Alces
Wed Aug 19, 2015 9:43 am
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: resources
Replies: 722
Views: 306637

Re: resources

http://enlil.ff.cuni.cz/system/files/tocharian.pdf

A concise handbook on Tocharian covering the development of the languages from PIE and their synchronic phonology and grammar.
by Alces
Sun Jul 19, 2015 7:12 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: please call stella
Replies: 23
Views: 7365

Re: please call stella

marconatrix wrote:
Why have you got your head inside a tin bucket?
Well, I don't have a microphone, and I don't know which part of my laptop receives the sound, so I probably wasn't directing my voice in the ideal direction.
by Alces
Sun Jul 19, 2015 8:08 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: please call stella
Replies: 23
Views: 7365

Re: please call stella

by Alces
Thu Apr 23, 2015 2:22 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
Replies: 3108
Views: 639971

Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Laura ["lO:r\@] (I don't know if [r\] is the best transcription--for me it has strong labialisation, in fact it seems like most of the obstruction is at the lips; my tongue barely moves from its resting position. But it's not the same kind of labialisation I have in [w]. Compared to [w], my lips pr...
by Alces
Thu Apr 23, 2015 6:00 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
Replies: 3108
Views: 639971

Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

discussed [dI"skUst] disgust [dIs"gUst] (I think there is a slight difference here, but it's hardly audible and I imagine my pronunciation is usually indistinguishable from [dI"skUst] within connected speech) Xavier ["zeIvi@] sphere ["sfi@] Sven ["svEn] wont ["wQnt] (although I don't think I've ever...
by Alces
Wed Apr 22, 2015 8:22 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Conlang relay [relocated] (aka "The Cursed Relay")
Replies: 2538
Views: 881018

Re: Akana Conlang Relay 2011 (The Never Ending Relay)

Yes--I've decided that, at least in an early stage of Wendoth, the prepositional clitics were postpositional, so -ta and -zha act as postpositions in that text. I think my initial motivation for making that change was that the instrumental case seemed a bit tacked-on and not really integrated into t...
by Alces
Mon Apr 20, 2015 12:52 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Conlang relay [relocated] (aka "The Cursed Relay")
Replies: 2538
Views: 881018

Re: Akana Conlang Relay 2011 (The Never Ending Relay)

That's fine with me :) I've drawn up some notes on two more Wendoth descendants now as well: Hỳng , a language spoken in the southeast part of the EW area, close to Wihəs (with some nice developments like p_G > k, t_G > t_w > p and ts > tT > tf; I had fun writing the sound changes for this one :) ) ...