zompist bboard

pharazon wrote:

Tengado wrote:There isn't a pharyngeal stop for me to contrast with, is there?

Well no.

Xhin says it's possible

More seriously, wikipedia says they are "thought to be impossible", which implies that they might not be, and they even have a symbol.....

WurdBendur, you do realise it's possible he's worked out a way round the problem or even completely forgotten about it by now? This topic is two years old.

http://www.umanitoba.ca/anthropology/tutor/index.html

(a site on kinship terms more generally, not just siblings, but very worth reading)

Space Dracula wrote:Nonetheless, adjectives in English in LFG are usually analyzed this way:

Then how do you account for the difference between "the little old man" (which contains "old man" as a sub-unit) and "the little, old man" (which doesn't)?

Shm Jay, in the Google Print thread, wrote:What?s to stop me from taking your grammar and having it form the plot of a porno movie?

Well, actually, I can think of a few reasons.........

But you can't tell me So Long and thanks for all the Fish made the Hitchiker series *better*. I mean - a detailed explanation of Brockian Ultra-Cricket? That was in Life, the Universe, and Everything . And I don't see how the detailed explanation detracts from the original joke. It's a separate jok...

They refer to the english concept of "portmanteau word", which is equivalent to the french "mot-valise". But "portmanteau word" is in turn derived from "portmanteau", meaning a suitcase such as one might carry one's coat in. This is an English coinage independent of the French porte-manteau which, ...

jesus, woman, calm down. when i said "everyone," i was refering to you and Zomp, who (as you say) share the same mind on this issue. and i know you werent addressing me, i was simply adding my thoughts regardless. As a person completely neutral to this discussion I'd just like to say that I saw not...

gach wrote:Most wonderful. Good that there are people to keep us in interesting langs.

Indeed, very wonderful. Lethe, you rock more than any words could possibly express.

We actually more usually say black-and-white.

No, because [] isn't the normal value of x in French; cf. existe . I only allow each language to contribute one value. (And yes, the /gz/ and /z/ on the list are from languages in which those are x's normal values.) The nearest I've got is one language in which <x> is [z] beginning a word and [] en...

No, because [] isn't the normal value of x in French; cf. existe . I only allow each language to contribute one value. (And yes, the /gz/ and /z/ on the list are from languages in which those are x's normal values.) The nearest I've got is one language in which <x> is [z] beginning a word and [] end...

If I were you, I wouldn't be too sarcastic..... English does have a past subjunctive, it's just that it's much less used.

Isn't the aorist for timeless truths, e.g. "I was born in 1990"? Trebor Fowler calls this the "gnomic aorist": "the use of the aorist, a tense usually referring to the past, to describe facts that are true of all time". The English example he gives is Shakespeare's "men were deceivers ever". As jsb...

gach wrote:x = laryngeal, could have been /? h x/ or even a vowel, it's not even present in every reconstructions

Interesting.... if it was a vowel, what would it be?

I'd just like to announce that the Great List of Uses for <x> (see previous page) has now reached 40, including a vowel. It now really could be used to make an entire language...... All the debate over English [gz] proves to have been fruitless, as I managed to unearth a conlang in which <x> = /gz/ ...

They're not a different species, unless I've misunderstood; this section should answer your questions and isn't too long to read.

I don't agree that these are analogous. People are genuinely uncertain about the day of the week much more often than about where they live. And in the case of the bumper sticker, it's a hypothetical situation from the perspective of the "speaker". (That the message is not delivered unless this sit...

zompist wrote:2. I'm not sure what you're getting at here; Ax. Jenweliz = 'old one of the forest'; Jeywelis is the normal Xurnash descendant.

This is really just a guess, but I think Alexandra may have been discomforted by the similarity to the word "jewel".

EDIT:

and the waiting wasn't in vain! After being on tenterhooks over that X...... it really is a thirty-sixth sound different from any other use I've seen!

*throws wild party* Just shows how subjective time is, doesn't it? Axunashin has been legendary ever since I joined the board, so I've always thought of it as one of those intriguing unwritten mysteries like the lost cases of Sherlock Holmes...... and here it is and I'm looking at it! I can't believ...

Shm Churmey wrote:Hey, it looks like I'll be the first to post about it!

Um....... not quite!!!

Actually, I'd rather see the Axunashin and Xurnash grammars, if you don't mind. I'm especially curious about the Xs, after Zomp's evasive answer last time he was asked about them sparked off an entire topic.

brandrinn wrote:I've read the historical atlas, and I even remember hearing the wedding verse about raising more children to fight the "demons." I was just trying to think of something different, all be it (as you pointed out) very unlikely.

I know this is a nitpick, but you mean albeit.