zompist bboard

Yeah, that's the kind. I have /i/ (FEET) for both wreath and wreathe, though (I never actually thought about them being different before). Also, the other's finally come to me: the Greek -sis/-ze pairs, like analysis versus analyze.

I just realized that I have, I think, /ð/ for the verb version of <scythe>, as in, "it scythed through the air", but /θ/ for the noun. So "The scythe scythed" would be /ðǝ saiθ saiðd/. Am I just freaky that way? I feel like this is part a more extensive pattern of English derivation, but if so, I'm ...

If you're trying to speak the other language, that's a lot messier, and the analogy's pretty apt. You know you know the word, but you're completely unable to come up with it. However, if someone says it, you'll instantly recognize it. [EDIT: Except depending on the state of your ability to speak, y...

I'm not saying it would be odd for it to have one, just that it would be odd for it to survive for four-thousand years as the sole click. Going mainly off John Wells , I was under the impression that, since paralinguistic features can vary so much geographically, they tend to do so temporally as wel...

I'm pretty sure it's paralinguistic, not a phrase, so it likely doesn't go back to PIE. It actually originally represented a velaric ingressive click, I believe, though I didn't make the connection between the orthographical representation and the actual sound until it was mentioned in Catford's Pra...

I decided that Ephemera could really use a thread where people can post random thoughts and fun facts. The thread will hopefully be an interesting one that's fun to read (unlike the venting and Eddy threads)! Does anybody else think this thread belongs in NOTA? It seems to be lasting too long to be...

I was working with some other people in a small bookstore that had crazy-short hours (something like 9-2), and as something of a joke our employer had hidden some small item whose identity I now forget somewhere in the store; however, the joke had gone slightly wrong, as none of us could find it, an...

OK, done and sent.

A (doubtless horrible) Spanish poem I wrote for my teacher's birthday Wednesday; he's Mexican, and the use of " chicharrones " is something of a running gag whenever I compose sentences. Estés muy felíz, no estés muy triste un otro año tu sobreviviste. Haya pastel, y haya canciones, y, más important...

Ooh, for a short text, this is tricky. Still, I can probably finish it tonight. Probably.

Ooh, I'm up first. Working with an uncorrupted text. Corrupting it. This should be fun.

Into: English, Latin, Spanish
Out of: English, Latin

(native language)
Though I will be without internet access for the last full week of August.

Lyhoko, your translation was very good; at times I forgot that I wasn't translating out of the original text. And I see I made some mistakes, too; there's one point where, looking at the text, I'm not even sure what I was trying to do. Presumably too much late-night translating. I also probably shou...

Yeah, aren't uvulars associated with low vowels? Or is that only pharyngeals?

Here's a phoneme pronunciation question:
When you pronounce /l/, does your tongue actually make contact with the roof of your mouth or your teeth in any postion?

If that's anything like being beheaded, that dream must have been quite unpleasant. I shudder at the thought.

Well, I imagine that if /r ɾ/ have some allophonic rounding going on, /ɒ/ might become /α/, which could then merge with /æ/, and then that could raise to /ɛ/, which is attested in some Arabic dialects; this would probably drag a mid back vowel down to /α/. Not a terrific solution, but if you can't f...

it explains the somewhat odd use of γ for ŋ before velars. Mm? How would γ having a value of /ŋ/ before a labial nasal help explain it having that value before velar stops? I'd think you meant that /gm/ assimilated to /ŋm/ so that γ spread to the pre-velar nasal, but it seems like that would negate...

I can tell them apart pretty easily; for one, <ν> never occurs between to consonants. Also, many fonts give <υ> μὲν a down-facing hook on the left, and in-facing one on the right (the latter makes it look rather like <ʋ>), while <ν> δὲ just gets a small serif on the left, at most, which is shorter a...

Nortaneous wrote:iunno, i suppose it'd help if you had [5]

Yeah, I'd have /ł/ in the same environment, actually, from /lˠ/. That's good to know, though, thanks.

Oy, sorry, when I asked about /tˠ/ > /t͡ɬ/, I meant /t͡sˠ/ > /t͡ɬ/. Does that make a difference?

Yeah, where does /t͡ɬ/ come from?

Really? I was thinking that maybe they would become some kind of backer consonants, but then thought it might not be plausible because they don't sound similat at all. Do you have any natlang examples? Well, I the palatalized labial to dental idea is from Hock's Principles of Historical Linguistics...

As I learned it, the rule for capitalizing titles is the first word, content words, and non-content words longer than four letters (or maybe at least 4) are capitalized, along with normal rules for proper nouns etc.. EDIT: Oh, wait, it seems there's a second page on which finlay beat me to the punch...

@ Qwynegold: I think that, besides losing the palatalization, the most common thing to happen to palatalized labials is becoming dentals.