Search found 181 matches

by Particles the Greek
Tue Dec 23, 2014 10:30 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: araceli's nominal system
Replies: 11
Views: 3502

Re: araceli's nominal system

Ah, right! Things are clearer now and in a good way. I had been worried there'd be too much redundancy in this system, but it looks like there's not. The animacy hierarchy handles case and the classes handle number, so they have a division of labour. Does the class system govern anything else, say ...
by Particles the Greek
Mon Dec 22, 2014 10:34 am
Forum: None of the above
Topic: The Contradictory Feelings Thread
Replies: 933
Views: 204834

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

We'll keep our collective fingers collectively crossed for you.
by Particles the Greek
Sun Dec 21, 2014 10:03 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: araceli's nominal system
Replies: 11
Views: 3502

Re: araceli's nominal system

I should maybe mention that my intention was to create something which (1) is messy enough to look like it could have developed organically in several stages and (2) is elaborate enough to simplify in interestingly different directions in descendant languages. I suppose it could be postulated that t...
by Particles the Greek
Fri Dec 19, 2014 10:07 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: araceli's nominal system
Replies: 11
Views: 3502

Re: araceli's nominal system

Here's the last bit; I don't know if it will enlighten you at all though. Interesting multiple class relationships As well as singular and plural, further categories of number, countability, size, and so on may be expressed by changing classes. For example, "eye(2)" (of small animate gender) is actu...
by Particles the Greek
Wed Dec 17, 2014 6:22 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: araceli's nominal system
Replies: 11
Views: 3502

Re: araceli's nominal system

OK then. Let's do this properly. Class and number On the basis of morphology, nineteen distinct classes may be identified. The classes are referred to here by their conventional numbers, which appear after the noun in brackets, e.g. "thing(12)"; the examples should be regarded as typical, but not ex...
by Particles the Greek
Wed Dec 17, 2014 6:18 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: araceli's nominal system
Replies: 11
Views: 3502

Re: araceli's nominal system

The Management wrote:We apologise for the delay. Those responsible have been destroyed in controlled explosions and the bits recycled to make new phonemes. We can now return to araceli's nominal system.
by Particles the Greek
Tue Dec 16, 2014 8:50 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: araceli's nominal system
Replies: 11
Views: 3502

Re: araceli's nominal system

We interrupt araceli's thread to bring you the following message.
The Management wrote:We are experiencing technical difficulties and will be back as soon as they are resolved. Your patience is appreciated.
by Particles the Greek
Tue Dec 16, 2014 8:49 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: araceli's nominal system
Replies: 11
Views: 3502

Re: araceli's nominal system

Right then. There are currently four types of case: Core cases , for agents and patients. Agents are never less animate than patients, as stated above. Possessive cases , alienable and inalienable; inanimates can never have inalienable possession. For example, in "the dog's bone", the use of inalien...
by Particles the Greek
Mon Dec 15, 2014 2:12 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: araceli's nominal system
Replies: 11
Views: 3502

araceli's nominal system

Araceli, you are knowledgeable, erudite, and witty, and the board has improved immeasurably since you joined. But you've been here for more than a year and have done little to justify yourself as a conlanger beyond asking a few stupid questions. Do you have anything to show for yourself, or are we ...
by Particles the Greek
Thu Dec 04, 2014 2:13 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Phoneme frequencies within various languages
Replies: 2
Views: 1508

Phoneme frequencies within various languages

Google only turns up results for English, French, Dutch, and Spanish, and even then you have to poke around quite a bit. Does anybody know of any more, by any chance? Note that I'm referring to *within*, not *across*, languages; for example the commonest consonant in English is /n/, but in French it...
by Particles the Greek
Mon Dec 01, 2014 1:56 pm
Forum: None of the above
Topic: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2
Replies: 812
Views: 203497

Re: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

Err... "dismantle and outsource the plausibility structure of the autochthonous people"?????
by Particles the Greek
Tue Nov 25, 2014 1:59 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: "Behind" versus "In back of"
Replies: 10
Views: 3883

"Behind" versus "In back of"

Do you have a preference? For me it's always "behind".
by Particles the Greek
Sun Nov 23, 2014 6:14 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The last vowel in "difficult"
Replies: 13
Views: 3678

The last vowel in "difficult"

Presumably this is typically a syllabic /l/, although to me it sounds more like /ɔ/, and I used to know someone who had /ʌ/. What other vowels do ZBBers have here?
by Particles the Greek
Sun Nov 23, 2014 6:11 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: English words with four CONSONANTS!!! in the coda
Replies: 18
Views: 4632

Re: English words with four syllables in the coda

He presumably meant "jinxed". "HE"? I did indeed; not for the first time, someone gets tripped up between the meaning of <j> in different phonological transcription traditions. And of course, I meant "four consonants". Thank you, Sal. "Lengths" and "strengths" work if you have one of those dialects...
by Particles the Greek
Fri Nov 21, 2014 2:59 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: English words with four CONSONANTS!!! in the coda
Replies: 18
Views: 4632

English words with four CONSONANTS!!! in the coda

I can only think of /teksts/ and /jinkst/. Are there any more?
by Particles the Greek
Wed Nov 19, 2014 2:05 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Name my dictatorship
Replies: 8
Views: 2401

Re: Name my dictatorship

How about "Kevin", or "Derek"?
by Particles the Greek
Fri Nov 14, 2014 3:00 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Of sound symbolism and the word "zigzag"
Replies: 18
Views: 4452

Of sound symbolism and the word "zigzag"

My spies tell me that "zigzag" comes from the German Zickzack , "possibly a reduplication of Zacke ". What other vowel alternations exist (in any language) which express back-and-forthness like this? There's Welsh igamogam , but that's due to the prepositions i and o more than to actual sound symbol...
by Particles the Greek
Mon Nov 03, 2014 1:52 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: [x] in loanwords to English
Replies: 22
Views: 4653

Re: [x] in loanwords to English

linguoboy wrote:Some varieties of English maintain /x/ as [x], notably Irish-English and Scottish-English.
Indeed. Only a Sassenach would pronounce "loch" with a final /k/.
by Particles the Greek
Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:50 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Spanish "masculine" girls names
Replies: 23
Views: 5256

Re: Spanish "masculine" girls names

I.e. those which end in /o/. IMHO it seems she's interested in what the end-result looks like in Spanish, not what origins they happen to come from. But I could be in error. Araceli, quid dicis? Actually, I originally just wanted to know how many Spanish girls' names ended in /o/. But then the thre...
by Particles the Greek
Fri Oct 10, 2014 2:17 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Elsewise
Replies: 11
Views: 2842

Re: Elsewise

I have occasionally come across "elsewhen", for what that's worth.
by Particles the Greek
Tue Oct 07, 2014 12:49 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: /j/ to /dʒ/ in Romance
Replies: 15
Views: 5053

Re: /j/ to /dʒ/ in Romance

A fourth category would be the OCD-type , where a gap in the system gets fixed by transferring a sound for no other reason from one part of the "IPA table" to another. Often this involves changes in one of the others, but they often make less sense phonologically. The Argentinian change of intervoc...
by Particles the Greek
Sat Oct 04, 2014 12:41 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 448252

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

The main problem with PIE is that it's like the worst kind of bumpy carpet: you try to remove one bump and several other bumps pop up elsewhere. An important part of PIE studies is learning which bumps to accept.
by Particles the Greek
Wed Oct 01, 2014 12:11 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Spanish "masculine" girls names
Replies: 23
Views: 5256

Re: Spanish "masculine" girls names

My Spanish sister-in-law likes to say, "Every woman in Spain is named for Mary." ( Purificación is one of her middle names.) The singer Monserrat Cabellé has gone on record saying, "My name is María." (In full, she's María de Montserrat Bibiana Concepción Caballé i Folch .) Ah, we have Montserrat t...
by Particles the Greek
Tue Sep 30, 2014 1:28 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Spanish "masculine" girls names
Replies: 23
Views: 5256

Re: Spanish "masculine" girls names

linguoboy wrote:Examples not ending in o: Carmen. Montserrat. Pilar.
And Araceli. And Aracelli.