zompist bboard

Travis B. wrote:I was wondering if there were tornadoes which were not violent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAxEJbzGqG8

I wonder how those four sentences with 'not' would be translated into Mandarin.

If I'm using an abjad with Arabic based characters, even if the grammar isn't similar to Arabic at all, I am basically making a knockoff of Arabic What makes you think so? All kinds of languages have been written with Arabic-based characters: Persian, Pashto, Urdu, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese... Abug...

I'm a little confused about what you're looking for. Are you saying that the ambiguity with "only" exists in Mandarin, but the ambiguity with "not" doesn't? Are you asking for a language where neither ambiguity exists because "only conlangers can write auxlangs," "conlangers can write only auxlangs,...

Hungarian has plenty of /s/ but not so much /ʒ/. EDIT: Or at least that's my impression. I'm pretty sure about the /s/ part but a bit more uncertain about /ʒ/.

hwhatting wrote:Sheep biting someone is mundane to you? Where do you live, Appalachia?

At least that's more mundane than a kid pinching an elephant!

Risla, I want to say thanks for some of your posts, especially in response to someone talking about being accused of making someone feel suicidal. It's comforting to hear from someone that it's probably not really our fault when that happens to us because I've been wondering. I wish I could figure o...

I feel a sense of deja vu when you mention this bully. This is a person you've mentioned here before, right?

I know. It was a joke.

Of course not, the Brits are obviously going around saying "RRÉLF! RRÉLF!"

That's just /z/ for me (but I believe your pronunciation may be common here, too. I'm sure I've heard/read of it before).

NEG sardine rain blood deer bone-thing Ék yí sí nã som kâ gõuk la'ikhõm ga màe. 1S NEG know REL.NMLZ CLASS think about RESULT-explain PROX.S EGO [ʔɛ́k jí sí nɑ̰ sɔ̄m kɑ̤ go̰k laʔɪkʰɔ̰m gɑ̄ mæ̀] I don't know what to think about this gloss. Mebbe aixe grrowrrierrr: maybe like.this/thus happy-COMP May...

I've never heard of any of those happening FWIW.

Maybe he was talking specifically to Sal?

I never eat breakfast these days except maybe on Sundays and Mondays (= my weekends these days), and even then only around noon (or later!). before I crack it over your head. It should be "on" your head. "Over my head" there's just thin air. JAL This reminds me of two of my colleagues in grad school...

Could it lenite to [fʲ] or something like that?

There are certain parts of a language that are more resistant to borrowing, like morphology, basic vocabulary and pronouns. If we see a lot of commonality in those categories, we can at least say that these languages are possibly genetically related. But even then, you'd have to take language conta...

I also have /gz/ in exit. I think I also have it in execute. In general, I find this whole stress-shifting thing in English very confusing for my brain.

Now I'm confused because it's impossible to reconstruct any of the proposed families in the title...

I'm confused. Why would you need to have separate abbreviations for possessum vs. possessor? Isn't it clear from the rest of the gloss and the translation? E.g. child-POSS stick 'the child's stick' makes it clear that it's the possessor that's being marked. child stick-POSS 'the child's stick' makes...

Some languages or at least language varieties have /ʂ/ and /ʃ/ without any problem, too. (Pashto and some varieties of Hindi come to mind).

If one proper name is enough to count as a distinct pronunciation for the letter "x," then there are definitely more than six pronunciations for "x."

I'm not sure one is more likely than the other, but I think /ʃ→ʂ/ is especially likely after a rhotic.

KathTheDragon wrote:

Vlürch wrote:Well, I'm not a scientist and am technically mentally ill, so anything I say should of course be rejected automatically.

What the actual fuck? Nobody said this! Moreover, I also fit that description.

I think he honestly believes that, though.

I can't think of an example of [ɲ] changing to [ɳ].