Search found 360 matches

by Richard W
Sun Jun 03, 2018 5:33 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Is German/Japanese sentence structure natural?
Replies: 10
Views: 31601

Re: Is German/Japanese sentence structure natural?

I think Sapir-Whorf is best taken with a grain of salt, or at least a sense of moderation. Does the language we think in affect how we think? Probably to some limited degree. Does not having a fully developed grammatical tense system make the Hopi incapable of grasping the concept of time? Highly d...
by Richard W
Sun Jun 03, 2018 10:10 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Is German/Japanese sentence structure natural?
Replies: 10
Views: 31601

Re: Is German/Japanese sentence structure natural?

You wanna share this paper with the class, or what? Well, the paper I read was The brain basis of language processing From structure to function by Angela Frederici, but I thought the search string would be more useful. There's no knock-out quote, but the general run of papers give a strong feeling...
by Richard W
Sat Jun 02, 2018 8:31 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Is German/Japanese sentence structure natural?
Replies: 10
Views: 31601

Re: Is German/Japanese sentence structure natural?

OP, just because something is unusual for you doesn't mean it's unnatural or any reason to believe that Japanese speakers' brains are inherently structured differently than English speakers'. Languages are stuffed full of variation that can seem quite surprising to people who aren't familiar with t...
by Richard W
Sat Jun 02, 2018 11:03 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 448338

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

And why would a nomadic herder who does not raise crops know about such a thing as plowing? Because he has business dealings with farmers? Modern nomads eat a lot of flour. And the word does not imply knowledge about ploughing; rather it implies knowledge *of* ploughing (or hoeing). Moreover, the w...
by Richard W
Sun May 06, 2018 6:28 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Is it better to say "for you and me" than "for me and you"?
Replies: 7
Views: 6062

Re: Is it better to say "for you and me" than "for me and yo

Axiem wrote:In a semi-formal/journalistic register for published American English, "for you and me" is considered the preferred arrangement.
Also consider better in British English. The prime example is the citation of Wolsey's so called 'disastrously ordered' 'ego et meus rex'.
by Richard W
Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:42 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Mitian, ...
Replies: 217
Views: 78969

Re: Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Mitian, ...

A lot of the time this doesn't really work though. Are commonalities between groups like Germanic and Balto-Slavic shared archaisms, late areal connections, or signs of a real genetic subgroup?
I suspect the classification of Romance is an example worth considering.
by Richard W
Mon Apr 23, 2018 2:37 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Mitian, ...
Replies: 217
Views: 78969

Re: Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Mitian, ...

You can't compare whole language families just based on proto-languages and be totally oblivious to the language branches down the tree. So when you are comparing IE and Uralic, you are actually comparing Finnic, Saamic, Volgaic, Permic, Ugric and Samoyedic against Hittite, Tocharian, Indo-Iranian,...
by Richard W
Sun Apr 22, 2018 8:52 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Mitian, ...
Replies: 217
Views: 78969

Re: Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Mitian, ...

And I think the best way to do this is bottom-up, by first looking at the language pairs/groups that may be more closely related, like Koreo-Japanese and Indo-Uralic. Pair by pair reconstruction is the worst way to do it. For example, consider reconstructing the Swadesh list. Every time at least on...
by Richard W
Sun Apr 22, 2018 8:29 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Mitian, ...
Replies: 217
Views: 78969

Re: Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Mitian, ...

If one is only interested in reconstructing linguistic family trees, that is a fair point. What else would you be interested in? Moreover, given this is a thread about reconstructing linguistic family trees, why shouldn't we only be interested in it? Classificatory labels that predict many of the m...
by Richard W
Sat Apr 21, 2018 8:43 pm
Forum: None of the above
Topic: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election
Replies: 323
Views: 93335

Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

What was the logic behind destroying the landing cards? Perhaps May knew that if they were conveniently gone, it'd be a lot easier to get rid of the Windfall generation in the future. Unless that's too cynical, even for her. Curiously, destroying evidence seems to be policy. If a parent is 'settled...
by Richard W
Sat Apr 21, 2018 6:33 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Mitian, ...
Replies: 217
Views: 78969

Re: Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Mitian, ...

However, if the influential relation affects the languages to the point where it becomes difficult to determine whether it's influence or genetic, it becomes "marriage", and as such makes the related languages related as well. That's how I view Eurasiatic and the various subdivisions. If that makes...
by Richard W
Thu Apr 19, 2018 2:40 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: What do you call this?
Replies: 302
Views: 87993

Re: What do you call this?

I'd call the old-style torch a "burning brand" if I had to make it clear that it wasn't an electric torch. Another possibility is 'flaming torch'. I used to think a 'flashlight' was a particularly brilliant type of torch, perhaps an arc light, rather than the feeble type of (electric) torch or bicyc...
by Richard W
Thu Apr 19, 2018 2:02 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Relative clauses: cross-linguistic comparison
Replies: 23
Views: 12983

Re: Relative clauses: cross-linguistic comparison

Complements: It's I who do that. It's me who does that. These two could also be a difference of register, but I'm not very good at register. Subject v. object: I, who loathe the idea, will resist it. Why have they asked me, who doesn't approve of the plan, to implement it. These are continuative rel...
by Richard W
Wed Apr 18, 2018 8:37 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Relative clauses: cross-linguistic comparison
Replies: 23
Views: 12983

Re: Relative clauses: cross-linguistic comparison

Does anyone have a natlang counterexample at hand? That is, an example where the subclause itself varies depending on whether it's attached to a subject or an object? In my usual English, 'who' with antecedent 'I' has 1s concord, but with antecedent 'me' it has 3s concord. This rule also works when...
by Richard W
Sat Feb 17, 2018 5:24 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Are the h and ng sounds allophones?
Replies: 31
Views: 16975

Re: Are the h and ng sounds allophones?

unless you're willing to bite the bullet and argue that different English speakers actually have significantly different underlying systems of syllabification, whatever that means I'm not saying the answer is yes, but why should we immediately discount that line of thinking? Because it's an inconve...
by Richard W
Sat Feb 17, 2018 5:16 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Are the h and ng sounds allophones?
Replies: 31
Views: 16975

Re: Are the h and ng sounds allophones?

It is usually thought of as n + g. I've actually thought of what you're saying before. I think that it isn't thought of as an allophonic pair by linguists because phones don't have any relationship - [h] can never be modified by its surroundings into becoming [ŋ] or vice versa. h > ŋ is a possible ...
by Richard W
Sat Feb 10, 2018 7:38 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 448338

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Breathy-voiced stops are rare . They occur in many languages of India - which all have either inherited or borrowed them from a single language , Sanskrit. Well, strictly speaking, I doubt the breathy voiced consonants in Pali derive from Sanskrit. (You're on safer ground if you claim Old Indic as ...
by Richard W
Wed Feb 07, 2018 2:06 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Occurrence of spelling pronunciations
Replies: 35
Views: 15333

Re: Occurrence of spelling pronunciations

I'm not sure that's necessarily true of kilns. Pottery-making is not exactly a dead art. But contact may be lost with pottery-making, and with the use of kilns in general. I don't understand what this means. It means that 'kiln' is not part of my everyday vocabulary. It's an unusual technical term ...
by Richard W
Tue Feb 06, 2018 11:31 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Occurrence of spelling pronunciations
Replies: 35
Views: 15333

Re: Occurrence of spelling pronunciations

In any case, if the /D/ was restored it was probably by analogy with 'cloth' By the time /ð/ was lost, cloth could have already had its vowel shortened. This is a nitpick, isn't it? The contact is probably with clothing and the verb to clothe . Cloth and clothe have largely gone their separate sema...
by Richard W
Tue Feb 06, 2018 11:28 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Occurrence of spelling pronunciations
Replies: 35
Views: 15333

Re: Occurrence of spelling pronunciations

linguoboy wrote: I'm not sure that's necessarily true of kilns. Pottery-making is not exactly a dead art.
But contact may be lost with pottery-making, and with the use of kilns in general.
by Richard W
Tue Dec 19, 2017 7:05 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Him and I.
Replies: 7
Views: 2870

Re: Him and I.

... basically just a rule rewriting "and me" to "and I" regardless of context. What I was exposed to was an instruction to convert 'Me and X' to 'X and I', as a politeness rule. "I and my king" (or "ego et meus rex") is well known to be potentially lethal. As "me and X" is commoner as subject than ...
by Richard W
Wed Dec 06, 2017 7:18 pm
Forum: None of the above
Topic: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election
Replies: 323
Views: 93335

Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Salmoneus wrote:Likewise, there will be people with a right to be in one place, but no right to cross into another.
There already are, and Operation Gull catches some when they have crossed.
by Richard W
Tue Dec 05, 2017 7:55 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: On borrowing pronouns
Replies: 5
Views: 2647

Re: On borrowing pronouns

Wiki sez: The feminine nominative hēo was at some point replaced with the feminine nominative article sēo, yielding "she"; whereas the h in plural forms such as hīe was replaced with þ under Norse influence as it evolved (a slower development that was not complete until well into the Middle English...
by Richard W
Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:34 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: How to make a spelling without diacritics?
Replies: 24
Views: 6340

Re: How to make a spelling without diacritics?

I don't see how typing alt+s is any slower than typing s-j. It's two characters either way. The 'alt' key is further from the 'home' position, and one has to be careful that one figures don't slip off the bottom of the keyboard. I have a keyboard layout for the Lanna script that caters for the alph...
by Richard W
Sun Sep 17, 2017 2:31 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Mitian, ...
Replies: 217
Views: 78969

Re: Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Mitian, ...

But if you look at these sound correspondences , it is quite clear that we are dealing with a loanword layer here, as they look exactly like the sound substitutions one would expect in IE loanwords in Uralic. There is at least one loanword layer. PU *k for laryngeals seems to be found in the oldest...