zompist bboard

Where was this categorization/prototype research done? I ask only because some of the starred examples seem like reasonable constructions in my idiolect. (Though to be fair that could also be due to my work with poetry and my willingness to experiment with stereotype/archetype groupings, and with no...

Looking at the above frame elements for killings in English, I can already think of two ways I might modify this frame for a conlang. I might add in a frame-element called BODY PART which specifies what part of the anatomy or anatomical system was the target of the instrument or the source of the c...

What do you think? And do you know any good book on such elements of pragmatics that don't just wave away the problem with vague useless descriptions like "the topic is what the clause is about" or "the focus is the new information"? Chris - if you ever find an answer to this one, please let me kno...

Legros said: When a frog species disappears, life itself is weakened. Some species are resistant to diseases which kill closely related ones: for instance, AIDS is lethal to humans but not to our very close cousins the apes. Maintaining biological diversity is a vital necessity. OTOH even if there ...

Hi, Eddy. Just a few initial comments ... Specifically: What purpose does the passive voice play? With free word order, what happens when the subject and object share the same class, number and person - how can a listener tell which is the subject and which the object? Noun incorporation strikes me ...

How would you handle something like "Theft is foolish."? You're wandering into the territory of metaphor here, which various languages handle in very different ways. I think it would be a mistake to transliterate the three phrases from English, as the transliterations would carry English baggage wi...

Side note: Ursula K. Le Guin, in her partially-developed Kesh language (from the book Always Coming Home ), did not include an animate/inanimate distinction as such, but she did make the point that the Kesh consider almost everything to be animate: the word translated as "person" or "being", she , ...

You're right, it isn't the entire story, but what would the French be without French? The Russians without Russian? It's a severe blow to a culture if they lose their language, and only the strongest of peoples can keep them while under brutal oppression (i.e: Celts, Greeks, etc.). The Celts of the...

For the sake of debate, may I disagree with many of the points already made? 1. On the culture front, I think the argument about preservation of language to preserve culture is disingenious. The British Isles are a good example: while the English language has come to dominate the landscape (often th...