zompist bboard

I came across this text: 私は　すべてを　つかさどる者。 あなたは　やげて　真の勇者として　私の前に　あらわれることでしょう…。 I can read all the characters, but only understand some of the meaning. How far off am I? Transliteration: watashi--wa subete--o tsukasadoru-mono. anata--wa yagete makoto--no yuu-sha--to shite watashi--no mae--ni arawareru-...

Why? There are a few other decent PIE roots with medial clusters of the shape s + a voiced obstruent.

Well, I was thinking of 'nizd', which is 'ni' + 'sed'.

Well, OK, there are tons of sC-roots (including very reliable ones, like 'stand' or 'snow') that haven't any attested forms without the s- (except in languages that regularly simplify such clusters). Very interesting. Hittite seems to have plenty of sC- words. Btw, I'm just wondering how far back t...

A few questions:
1) Does PIE have any roots of the form sC(C)V(C)C that *aren't* from s-mobile?
2) Does Anatolian/Hittite show any effects of s-mobile?
3) Does Anatolian/Hittite show any of the usual vowel changes (h2e > a/h2a) caused by laryngeals?

Imralu wrote:Relevant. Also, the comments do seem to indicate this is very common.

(Psst. Dewrad already posted that on the first page.)

It depends on whether you look at the animal as a naturally gendered thing or not. Like, I don't care if a cockroach (el escarabajo) is female; it's always gonna be asqueroso.

What things are considered 'naturally gendered'? Mammals and birds? But not insects, fish , and reptiles?

Recently there is an ad for anti-aging wrinkle cream on the trains that is playing on this -ru usage. It created a new verb 般若る hannyaru "to look like a hannya" (a kind of female demon from Noh theatre). Obviously it is a joke usage, but in fact this usage is a major part of the joke (it wouldn't b...

How about languages other than English, if they have a comparable idiom? Do you mean light verbs with the same meanings?, or light verbs in general? Anyways, Japanese makes light verbs with 'suru' ('to do'). For example: - benkyou suru == to study - undou suru == to exercise - kekkon suru == to get...

This link is only somewhat related, but it's really good, and I think that some people would like it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-form

Japanese has some: 1) Numerals can change to fit their counter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_counter_word#Euphonic_changes 2) Verbs get changed by many things. (-i form, -te form, perfective, etc) 3) The location of the tone fall in the noun affects the tone of the postposition. ' == fall -...

It is very beautiful. The list of explanations seems incomplete though.

(At the top, is that a giant enemy crab that I see!?)

Besides, the strategy you describe would result in indefinitely multiplying the concept of a syntactic category. With function words, it's very likely you'd end up with a part of speech per word. Yes, there would be many categories that would consist of a single word. I'm okay with that and don't s...

However, consider: I didn't see the man, but the woman. (NP conj NP) *I didn't see the man, therefore the woman. Worship no god but Allah. *Worship no god therefore Allah. He didn't fall off but was pushed. (VP conj VP) *He didn't fall off therefore was pushed. He loves me but not you. (NP conj NP)...

There's no reason all conjunctions would have to work in that particular sentence. Yes, yes there is: Because that's the actual (syntactic) definition of a conjunction: A conjunction is anything that can take that place in that sentence. If something can't take that place, then it's not a conjuncti...

If syntactic categories are artifacts of analysis, are there schools of analysis, such that each school tends to identify the same features across several languages? If so, maybe I could just find a school that felt right to me and go with their analysis. His - third person singular masculine posses...

However, there is currently no generally agreed-upon classification scheme that can apply to all languages, or even a set of criteria upon which such a scheme should be based." Argh! A grenerally-agreed upon classification of parts of speech that can apply to all languages is exactly what a conlang...

Read "Describing Morphosyntax": http://www.amazon.com/Describing-Morpho ... 0521588057

In the same vein as my 'to run out of x' thread, here's another thing that I doubt translates well between languages. Again, how do other languages do it? What's the etymology of their equivalent (if any) of "back"?

Arhama, read this thread : viewtopic.php?f=7&t=41677

Mandarin has a famous phonology problem with the phonemes /k tɕ ʈʂ/ that occurs before /i/...

Can you explain further?

This happens in English too: Uni-aged men are guys. Uni-aged women are girls. Indeed, we have those too. Where are you from again? This happens with names in general: All the Esther's and Margaret's that I know are my grandmother's age or older. Why some names start to sound old, but others don't, ...

Relevant: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=41148&start=25

finlay wrote:f is more likely to be borrowed as h if you look at older loanwords.

Examples? kohi for "coffee"? Or is f not phonemic at all?

Astraios wrote:

Terra wrote:This all reminds me of Israeli Hebrew and how the phonemic status of p/f, t/T, k/x was affected by loanwords.

My turn to nitpick: the interdental fricatives aren't affected by that, they simply merge with the dental stops.

Hmm, okay.