Search found 304 matches

by Zhen Lin
Thu Oct 22, 2015 6:01 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Chinese tones and tonogenesis
Replies: 15
Views: 6746

Re: Chinese tones and tonogenesis

Sorry for the necromancy, but as I looked through the jōyō kanji table, I noticed that MC tones probably conditioned sound changes. Specifically, while MC voiced obstruents all devoiced in Mandarin, those in the level tone became aspirated, while those in departing tone became tenuis. This may be a...
by Zhen Lin
Tue Oct 06, 2015 5:59 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Proto-Austronesian Phonology
Replies: 9
Views: 3030

Re: Proto-Austronesian Phonology

Tropylium wrote: On other other hand, if you read closely, you'll notice Sagart is actually positing [ɲʑ] and not [ɲ], which he's trying to sweep under the rug as allophony or whatever. But that seems to be relevant in explaining all the obstruent reflexes.
That sounds rather suspiciously like Middle Chinese.
by Zhen Lin
Tue Jun 09, 2015 2:24 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Relative frequency of /oi/ vs /eu/
Replies: 12
Views: 3384

Re: Relative frequency of /oi/ vs /eu/

Sumelic wrote:Is one of these sources simply wrong, or are both changes attested (perhaps in different contexts, such as sequences within a root vs. sequences derived from the addition of grammatical endings)?
Wikipedia is correct. Look at historical orthography, e.g. 〜ませう for 〜ましょう.
by Zhen Lin
Fri Apr 10, 2015 4:54 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Chinese thread
Replies: 108
Views: 23350

Re: Chinese thread

[aɹ] for 兒 sounds very Beijing-ese to me. [ɹ̩] (or perhaps more accurately, [ɻ̩]) for 日 is not unusual, I think. You might also hear a more vocalic off-glide.
by Zhen Lin
Tue Mar 31, 2015 3:53 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Ingroup versus outgroup pronouns
Replies: 42
Views: 8144

Re: Ingroup versus outgroup pronouns

Also! Honorific forms in -si (this is verbs we're talking about now, as in "haseyo") are often used based on the level of politeness toward the subject of the sentence, not just the listener, so it could be "3rd person politeness" or whatever you want to call it. "Often"? I was told always. I remem...
by Zhen Lin
Wed Dec 03, 2014 5:53 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Chinese tones and tonogenesis
Replies: 15
Views: 6746

Re: Chinese tones and tonogenesis

However, I can't find any sources that both a) describe the tones in a way that is meaningful to me as a non-student of Chinese and b) use these tone names. I've come across English names like "entering" and "departing" which are sort of meaningless to me as well as numbers for them, but the Chines...
by Zhen Lin
Thu Aug 14, 2014 3:20 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Derivation and reduplication interference
Replies: 3
Views: 1455

Re: Derivation and reduplication interference

Malay has (prefixal) reduplication as well as derivational prefixes. For instance, perlahan-lahan "slowly".
by Zhen Lin
Tue Aug 12, 2014 1:31 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Examples of truly unique conlang features?
Replies: 57
Views: 15221

Re: Examples of truly unique conlang features?

Are there any natlangs that conjugate verbs for aspect, mood, and voice, but not at all for person, number, gender, and tense? Japanese verbs conjugate for tense (past / non-past), mood (indicative, negative, imperative, conditional, hortative), and voice (active, passive, potential, causative, pas...
by Zhen Lin
Sun Aug 03, 2014 4:40 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Suggestions on "destabilizing" a sound
Replies: 4
Views: 1886

Re: Suggestions on "destabilizing" a sound

[nʒ̃] is not so far from one of the reconstructed pronunciations of the 日 initial in Middle Chinese, namely Karlgren's ńź (nasalised alveolopalatal affricate). This sound has many reflexes: In Mandarin, pinyin <r> (voiced retroflex fricative or approximant) In Cantonese, jyutping <j> (palatal approx...
by Zhen Lin
Thu Jun 19, 2014 1:49 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Regular and Irregular Languages
Replies: 36
Views: 8061

Re: Regular and Irregular Languages

slang expressions like 埋單 máidān "foot the bill", "take responsibility" (lit. "bury single") I am under the impression this is a borrowing from Cantonese. 單 here is surely meant in the sense of "bill", cf 菜單, 名單. The first element is somewhat more mysterious, but apparently 埋 in Cantonese has the a...
by Zhen Lin
Mon Jun 16, 2014 9:25 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Writing English in Hanzi
Replies: 8
Views: 3940

Re: Writing English in Hanzi

Plus, you'd probably run into problems with words that have morphemes with the same semantics but different sources, like "behead" versus "decapitate", which would probably be written with (or at least start with) exactly the same characters in that scheme. This already happens in Japanese: 一日 can ...
by Zhen Lin
Sat Jun 14, 2014 12:45 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Looking for sound changes
Replies: 38
Views: 7968

Re: Looking for sound changes

is ŋ > g attested? This is just denasalisation and should be about as common. For example, Minnan, and as already mentioned, Japanese (but notably in kan-on). t k > 0 / V_V (Marathi) probably with voiced stops as intermediates, since they also became silent Latin intervocalic /t/ (and /d/) chain-sh...
by Zhen Lin
Tue Oct 08, 2013 6:24 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Personal pronouns genesis
Replies: 36
Views: 7912

Re: Personal pronouns genesis

The inherited personal pronouns (1P wa-, 2P na-, 3P si-, Q ta-, REFL ono-) from Old Japanese are more-or-less extinct. Some of the personal pronouns that appeared in the interim have fairly transparent etymologies – as already mentioned, 1P boku ← 僕 servant (a Sinitic loanword!); watakushi ← 1P 私 pr...
by Zhen Lin
Tue Oct 01, 2013 2:49 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Most Insane Languages: Follow Up Poll
Replies: 22
Views: 6528

Re: Most Insane Languages: Follow Up Poll

It's not an isolated occurrence – there are other rebuses in the Man'yōshū – and although the rebuses have perhaps gone extinct, the spirit of such "creative" orthography lives on in modern Japanese, thanks to (ab)use of furigana. Try reading a light novel sometime...
by Zhen Lin
Mon Sep 30, 2013 5:02 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Most Insane Languages: Follow Up Poll
Replies: 22
Views: 6528

Re: Most Insane Languages: Follow Up Poll

Japanese should win hands down. There's no way that an orthography where 山上復有山 can spell /ide/ can be considered sane... How does that work? It's a rebus. /ide/ is normally spelled 出で, or just 出. 山上復有山 means "one 山 over another 山". But a rebus or puzzle is not the same as actually writing something...
by Zhen Lin
Fri Sep 20, 2013 3:08 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Most Insane Languages: Follow Up Poll
Replies: 22
Views: 6528

Re: Most Insane Languages: Follow Up Poll

Nortaneous wrote:
Zhen Lin wrote:Japanese should win hands down. There's no way that an orthography where 山上復有山 can spell /ide/ can be considered sane...
How does that work?
It's a rebus. /ide/ is normally spelled 出で, or just 出. 山上復有山 means "one 山 over another 山".
by Zhen Lin
Thu Sep 05, 2013 3:14 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Most Insane Languages: Follow Up Poll
Replies: 22
Views: 6528

Re: Most Insane Languages: Follow Up Poll

Qwynegold wrote:
Japanese in Hiragana/Katakana/Hanji
It's called kanji. And it's only kanji that's ill suited for Japanese; hiragana/katakana fit perfectly.
Japanese should win hands down. There's no way that an orthography where 山上復有山 can spell /ide/ can be considered sane...
by Zhen Lin
Wed Apr 17, 2013 1:37 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Non-obvious placename pronunciations
Replies: 253
Views: 40339

Re: Non-obvious placename pronunciations

But yeah, it would prevent foreigners from misreading it as /lɒndɒn/ or whatever. That's how the Japanese pronounce it, a complete spelling pronunciation but nobody seems to notice or care. That's exactly how my officemate says it, despite having lived there for many years and pronouncing most othe...
by Zhen Lin
Mon Apr 08, 2013 1:23 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Non-obvious placename pronunciations
Replies: 253
Views: 40339

Re: Non-obvious placename pronunciations

不忍 looks like it should be Funin but it is Shinobazu . That's a standard gikun reading. 不忍 = 忍ばず, 不知火 = 知らぬ火 etc. 神戸 is the city of Kōbe , which is famous enough that no one mispronounces it, but it looks like it should be pronounced Jinko or Kamito . 神戸 also appears in one or two other place names...
by Zhen Lin
Wed Mar 06, 2013 6:48 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Japanese ~tachi, and related concepts
Replies: 15
Views: 3772

Re: Japanese ~tachi, and related concepts

It can't be used with inanimate objects. It is essentially a suffix meant for people. It can and is used for animals, but this is a little bit cutesy or informal, because it is essentially humanizing the animals, which children do often; for example, it is extremely common for children to put -san ...
by Zhen Lin
Wed Feb 20, 2013 3:02 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Genitive Marker to Subject Marker.
Replies: 23
Views: 5035

Re: Genitive Marker to Subject Marker.

の can substitute for が sometimes in modern Japanese in relative clauses. Given that the modern predicative form (終止形) was historically the attributive form (連体形), i.e. the form used to construct relative clauses, perhaps the shift of が from "genitive" to "nominative" isn't that far-fetched.
by Zhen Lin
Thu Jul 26, 2012 3:54 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Question about chinese dialects
Replies: 19
Views: 3883

Re: Question about chinese dialects

And mostly the reason why I decided to find out what dialect it was because I was VERY surprised at the way they spoke. It was so smooth that I never heard any chinese dialect even remotely like that. Because it is supposed to be comprised of more or less isolated word-syllables. What? Most Mandari...
by Zhen Lin
Wed Jul 25, 2012 4:50 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Question about chinese dialects
Replies: 19
Views: 3883

Re: Question about chinese dialects

Karutoshika wrote:
Serafín wrote:Just by probability it was most likely Mandarin, Cantonese, Min Nan or Hakka...
It was not mandarin, that's for sure, as I can easily distinguish mandarin.
I've heard Chinese tourists speak Mandarin with all kinds of accents. Standard Mandarin isn't the only one!
by Zhen Lin
Wed Jul 18, 2012 10:48 am
Forum: None of the above
Topic: LaTeX: How do you insert IPA characters?
Replies: 30
Views: 11210

Re: LaTeX: How do you insert IPA characters?

Can someone please explain to me the actual benefits, for the average writer, of doing things in *TeX rather than, saw, a word processor? I've tried and I've experimented and I've concluded that I do not have time for that shit. Why do people use it? There aren't any. It is for dorks who a) need to...
by Zhen Lin
Mon Jul 16, 2012 1:01 am
Forum: None of the above
Topic: LaTeX: How do you insert IPA characters?
Replies: 30
Views: 11210

Re: LaTeX: How do you insert IPA characters?

If you are using XeTeX or LuaTeX or any decent modern TeX engine with Unicode support, you can just insert the appropriate Unicode characters. Otherwise you can use commands like \textscr for ʀ, etc.