Search found 91 matches
- Wed Jul 14, 2010 5:02 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Sound changes in function words
- Replies: 30
- Views: 6080
This is true from a certain theoretical perspective: if you exclude sound changes following from leveling and reformation of words. Traditionally, these are excluded and invoked as a means or explanation of "irregular change." From leveling and reformation come many irregularities, such as sound ch...
- Wed Jul 14, 2010 4:28 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Sound changes in function words
- Replies: 30
- Views: 6080
I have heard that as well. Generally they say that sound changes don't care about grammatical traits. This is true from a certain theoretical perspective: if you exclude sound changes following from leveling and reformation of words. Traditionally, these are excluded and invoked as a means or expla...
- Sun Jul 11, 2010 7:11 pm
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: What is the limit of similarity for allophones?
- Replies: 26
- Views: 13762
Since allophones tend to come from historical processes, I'd say that almost any two phones could be allophones of each other. I dunno if you can stretch allophony that far. Yeah, you can; in one or another Algonquian language, through merger and assimilation, these allophonic variants hold: č:n š:...
- Sat Jul 10, 2010 5:38 pm
- Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
- Topic: ASCA v0.1.6 - NEW
- Replies: 125
- Views: 32462
Also, could someone respond to this thread and tell me that I didn't waste my time developing this monstrosity? If you'd done it 6 months ago, I'd have used it for Central Mountain. I ended up using Mark's Sounds, for two reasons--(1) No other SCA had all the features I needed, so they were all bas...
- Fri Jul 09, 2010 1:39 am
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: h4 and h5
- Replies: 92
- Views: 40190
My information might be out of date, but last I heard there was still debate about it. Kortland, at least in 2001, subscribed to the theory that *h2 and *h3 were retained before *e but were lost before *o. In an article I have by him he critiques Kimball's theory that *h2 was retained before *o. Th...
- Mon Jul 05, 2010 4:17 pm
- Forum: C&C Archive
- Topic: Central Mountain: From Hlholammelo & Kapakwonak to Noyah
- Replies: 6
- Views: 2782
I liked the lenition of nasals to h before voiceless stops. Apparently a lot of languages don't like Nasal+Voiceless-Plosive clusters; we spent half a semester talking about this in the context of Optimality Theory in one of my courses. It happens in a number of Algonquian languages, actually (like...
- Mon Jul 05, 2010 2:53 pm
- Forum: C&C Archive
- Topic: Central Mountain: From Hlholammelo & Kapakwonak to Noyah
- Replies: 6
- Views: 2782
I'd like to point out that the developments in CN that lead to the k:n and p:m correspondences came about from a technique I've talked about before: seeing tendencies in natlangs and expanding on/altering them into something new, something which is unattested in natlangs but which is nevertheless ph...
- Mon Jul 05, 2010 12:31 am
- Forum: C&C Archive
- Topic: Central Mountain: From Hlholammelo & Kapakwonak to Noyah
- Replies: 6
- Views: 2782
Central Mountain: From Hlholammelo & Kapakwonak to Noyah
At long last here are the semi-final sound changes from Hlholammelo (Hlh) and Kapakwonak (K) to Classical Noyahtowa (CN). CN is the result of the rare phenomenon of language fusion: in this case, two related and morphologically very similar languages (Hlh and K) undergo massive cross-borrowing of el...
- Sun Jul 04, 2010 9:39 pm
- Forum: C&C Archive
- Topic: For EnterJustice (and others): Central Mountain morphology
- Replies: 3
- Views: 2337
This is great! It's really hard to get my head around how polysenthetic languages work. Getting out of the traditional Latinate grammar mold is the key to beginning to understand them; along with that chuck the pervasive notion that a word expresses a single idea, act or thing. Instead, think of th...
- Sun Jul 04, 2010 6:51 pm
- Forum: C&C Archive
- Topic: Central Mountain morphology II
- Replies: 3
- Views: 2237
Central Mountain morphology II
The first post couldn't fit the whole article, so here's the rest of it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PERSONAL PRONOUNS PPCM has a set of personal pronouns, which may be used largely like any other free-standing nominals; however, these occur ...
- Sun Jul 04, 2010 6:25 pm
- Forum: C&C Archive
- Topic: For EnterJustice (and others): Central Mountain morphology
- Replies: 3
- Views: 2337
For EnterJustice (and others): Central Mountain morphology
This is a repost in response to a request from EnterJustice in another thread; the original post containing this information has been lost. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PRE-PROTO-CENTRAL MOUNTAIN AND PROTO-CENTRAL MOUNTAIN §1. Central Mountain ...
- Thu Jul 01, 2010 8:17 pm
- Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
- Topic: ASCA v0.1.6 - NEW
- Replies: 125
- Views: 32462
Ok, while I still can't release any version of this program yet, I do have a few things to report. First, I am still working on implementing variables correctly; I need to sit down and think about how to do this cleanly and correctly. Second, I have added Many-to-One rule support, so that any numbe...
- Thu Jul 01, 2010 3:02 am
- Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
- Topic: ASCA v0.1.6 - NEW
- Replies: 125
- Views: 32462
Re: ASCA - A Sound Change Applier
This is a worthy project, but it comes too late for me to make use of, unfortunately; I recently completed all the sound change files for the Central Mountain family using a revised version of Zomp's Sounds. They're long and use many work-arounds, but at this point I'd rather not re-translate them t...
- Wed Jun 16, 2010 10:36 pm
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: Polysynthetic Conlang
- Replies: 638
- Views: 261359
This even goes for instrumental ideas, which, in Algonquian languages like Cheyenne, you'll often find marked with finals on verbs; there are huge numbers of fused subject-object-instrumental finals in Cheyenne that show the subject, object and the means by which an act is done, all at the same tim...
- Fri May 28, 2010 7:27 pm
- Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
- Topic: ConlangDictionary 0.3 - now phonology parsing is faster
- Replies: 355
- Views: 84356
I'm after a morpheme sensitive dictionary--where I can define both morphemes and words, and when I alter the entry for any word or morpheme, all relevant morpheme and word-forms will be updated. Does this dictionary work that way? It will work that way eventually, but it is still early days yet. I ...
- Wed May 26, 2010 6:15 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Mohawk, Algonquian and related grammars
- Replies: 1
- Views: 1726
Re: Mohawk, Algonquian and related grammars
I'm looking for a few decent free grammars. Any suggestions? Bonvillain's Akwesane Mohawk grammar is the definitive treatment of that language. As for Algonquian, try Leman's Cheyenne reference grammar, Valentine's Nishnabemwin grammar and Costa's grammar of Miami-Illinois. If you're interested in ...
- Mon May 24, 2010 11:51 pm
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: Is the core - oblique distinction universal?
- Replies: 24
- Views: 13358
Re: Is the core - oblique distinction universal?
It's "Understanding and Explaining Applicatives", published by the Chicago Linguistic Society, volume 37 in 2002. I'd really appreciate it if you did have it. I don't have it on hand; but I was planning on going to the IUPUI library sometime this week for research; I'll see if I can find it, and if...
- Sun May 23, 2010 11:30 pm
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: Is the core - oblique distinction universal?
- Replies: 24
- Views: 13358
Re: Is the core - oblique distinction universal?
It's "Understanding and Explaining Applicatives", published by the Chicago Linguistic Society, volume 37 in 2002. I'd really appreciate it if you did have it. I don't have it on hand; but I was planning on going to the IUPUI library sometime this week for research; I'll see if I can find it, and if...
- Sun May 23, 2010 1:51 pm
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: Is the core - oblique distinction universal?
- Replies: 24
- Views: 13358
Re: Is the core - oblique distinction universal?
What's the name of the Mithun article? I have a huge PDF library (from JSTOR and photocopies made over the years), and may have it. I'm 99.9% sure I discussed this stuff with Eddy...check the polysynthesis thread; it was probably saved. If not, I can discuss it again, but it'll have to wait until I ...
- Sun May 23, 2010 10:25 am
- Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
- Topic: ConlangDictionary 0.3 - now phonology parsing is faster
- Replies: 355
- Views: 84356
- Sat May 22, 2010 3:09 pm
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: How do you tell what family what language belongs to ?
- Replies: 30
- Views: 9362
I concede the former point; it's possible, though I suspect rare. So rare, in fact, that to invoke it would require some good positive reason. My reasons briefly are: (i) that the published Wiyot and Yurok material indicates that both have many morphological traits which are thoroughly un-Algonquian...
- Sat May 22, 2010 1:44 am
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: How do you tell what family what language belongs to ?
- Replies: 30
- Views: 9362
Your point about areal influences being "slapdash" and not resulting in a large number of consistent morphological correspondences is unfounded I think. Can you think of a case where areal influence has resulted in a large number of consistent morphological correspondences? Where, essentially, a la...
- Fri May 21, 2010 4:46 pm
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: How do you tell what family what language belongs to ?
- Replies: 30
- Views: 9362
In highly synthetic languages, morphological similarities can be far more useful than sound correspondences. Vajda's connection of Yeniseian to Na-Dene was done largely on the basis of verb morphology; I don't recall seeing anything explicitly about sound correspondences in that paper. Well, he did...
- Fri May 21, 2010 4:32 pm
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: How do you tell what family what language belongs to ?
- Replies: 30
- Views: 9362
Mixed languages are of course not conlangs. They are completely natural languages. They are natural languages because all languages are mixed to one degree or the other. Being a mixed language is the natural state of a language. Some language are just called "mixed" because the circumstances of the...
- Wed May 05, 2010 11:58 am
- Forum: L&L Museum
- Topic: Polysynthetic Conlang
- Replies: 638
- Views: 261359
The nominal morphologies of Algic/Algonquian and Iroquoian are very basic and sparse compared to their extremely rich and sophisticated verbal morphologies. There's nominal marking for person, number, gender, etc., and sometimes for augmentatives or diminutives, but little else. It's the verb that ...