Search found 91 matches

by vohpenonomae
Wed Jul 14, 2010 5:02 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Sound changes in function words
Replies: 30
Views: 5912

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...
by vohpenonomae
Wed Jul 14, 2010 4:28 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Sound changes in function words
Replies: 30
Views: 5912

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...
by vohpenonomae
Sun Jul 11, 2010 7:11 pm
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: What is the limit of similarity for allophones?
Replies: 26
Views: 12743

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:...
by vohpenonomae
Sat Jul 10, 2010 5:38 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: ASCA v0.1.6 - NEW
Replies: 125
Views: 31675

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...
by vohpenonomae
Fri Jul 09, 2010 1:39 am
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: h4 and h5
Replies: 92
Views: 38087

My information might be out of date, but last I heard there was still debate about it.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...
by vohpenonomae
Mon Jul 05, 2010 4:17 pm
Forum: C&C Archive
Topic: Central Mountain: From Hlholammelo & Kapakwonak to Noyah
Replies: 6
Views: 2739

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...
by vohpenonomae
Mon Jul 05, 2010 2:53 pm
Forum: C&C Archive
Topic: Central Mountain: From Hlholammelo & Kapakwonak to Noyah
Replies: 6
Views: 2739

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...
by vohpenonomae
Mon Jul 05, 2010 12:31 am
Forum: C&C Archive
Topic: Central Mountain: From Hlholammelo & Kapakwonak to Noyah
Replies: 6
Views: 2739

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...
by vohpenonomae
Sun Jul 04, 2010 9:39 pm
Forum: C&C Archive
Topic: For EnterJustice (and others): Central Mountain morphology
Replies: 3
Views: 2289

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...
by vohpenonomae
Sun Jul 04, 2010 6:51 pm
Forum: C&C Archive
Topic: Central Mountain morphology II
Replies: 3
Views: 2199

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 ...
by vohpenonomae
Sun Jul 04, 2010 6:25 pm
Forum: C&C Archive
Topic: For EnterJustice (and others): Central Mountain morphology
Replies: 3
Views: 2289

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 ...
by vohpenonomae
Thu Jul 01, 2010 8:17 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: ASCA v0.1.6 - NEW
Replies: 125
Views: 31675

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...
by vohpenonomae
Thu Jul 01, 2010 3:02 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: ASCA v0.1.6 - NEW
Replies: 125
Views: 31675

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...
by vohpenonomae
Wed Jun 16, 2010 10:36 pm
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: Polysynthetic Conlang
Replies: 638
Views: 253580

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...
by vohpenonomae
Fri May 28, 2010 7:27 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: ConlangDictionary 0.3 - now phonology parsing is faster
Replies: 355
Views: 82347

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 ...
by vohpenonomae
Wed May 26, 2010 6:15 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Mohawk, Algonquian and related grammars
Replies: 1
Views: 1693

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 ...
by vohpenonomae
Mon May 24, 2010 11:51 pm
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: Is the core - oblique distinction universal?
Replies: 24
Views: 12782

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...
by vohpenonomae
Sun May 23, 2010 11:30 pm
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: Is the core - oblique distinction universal?
Replies: 24
Views: 12782

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...
by vohpenonomae
Sun May 23, 2010 1:51 pm
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: Is the core - oblique distinction universal?
Replies: 24
Views: 12782

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 ...
by vohpenonomae
Sun May 23, 2010 10:25 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: ConlangDictionary 0.3 - now phonology parsing is faster
Replies: 355
Views: 82347

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? I also need one that can handle Unicode.
by vohpenonomae
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: 9161

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...
by vohpenonomae
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: 9161

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...
by vohpenonomae
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: 9161

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...
by vohpenonomae
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: 9161

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...
by vohpenonomae
Wed May 05, 2010 11:58 am
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: Polysynthetic Conlang
Replies: 638
Views: 253580

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 ...