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Re: resources

Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 11:49 pm
by communistplot
Tropylium⁺ wrote:
savagemyth wrote:Any resources on the Ryukyuan languages? Much appreciated. =]
For starters, here's a small discussion with a link to a dissertation in French:
http://amritas.com/101023.htm#10192359

(Depending on your degree of previous exposure, prepare for having your mind blown.)
I can't read French. T^T Translation? =D But thanks still. =] Where did those vowels go?

Re: resources

Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 12:09 am
by Nortaneous
savagemyth wrote:Where did those vowels go?
the page wrote:Oogami f and s originate from PJ high vowels (*u, *i, and the diphthong *ui).

Long vowels in monosyllables became long fricatives:

*pi [pii]? > *pɿɿ > pss

*tu became ks:

*tu > *tsɿ > ks

*pu and *ku merged as *fu which then became f:

*pu.k-i > f.ks

*tu.ku.r-i > kff

(10.20.0:04: Cf. Cantonese 苦 fu < *khu.)

*s assimilated to an adjacent *f:

*tu.ku.r-i > *tsɿ.fu.r-i > *ksf > kff
so they devoiced

Re: resources

Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 11:12 am
by Alces
http://www.gmi.org/products/gis/wlms/sa ... s/huffman/

Very detailed maps of languages and their locations. Covers some areas, like China, where the Ethnologue doesn't have a proper map.

Re: resources

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:05 pm
by chris_notts
This is a good read:

http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~mielke/ ... e_diss.pdf
"The Emergence of Distinctive Features"

Re: resources

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:24 pm
by TomHChappell
chris_notts wrote:"The Emergence of Distinctive Features"
Mielke's dissertation abstract wrote:... Based on data from 561 languages, the survey reveals that unnatural classes are widespread: among 6077 unique classes of sounds which are targets or triggers of phonological processes, analyzed in three popular feature theories ..., no single theory is able to characterize more than 71% of the classes, and over 24% are not characterizable in any of the theories. While other theories are able to account for specific subsets of these classes, none is able to predict the wide range of classes which actually occur and recur. ...
Oh, boy. :? :roll: :(
Or, should that be:
Oh, boy! :D 8)

Re: resources

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:53 pm
by chris_notts
TomHChappell wrote:Oh, boy. :? :roll: :(
Or, should that be:
Oh, boy! :D 8)
:) The argument the author makes agrees with my view of linguistics in general.

Undoubtedly there are processing constraints for languages - no-one has found a stack-based human language for example, and almost certainly there isn't one. In the case of phonetics and phonology, the patterns are also driven by the ability of humans to perceive and produce different sounds. And the evidence is that there is almost certainly some kind of basic built-in language faculties, since there are types of brain damage that only seem to affect language use.

But I think that a lot of what gets codified as supposedly universal grammar is simply the product of the interaction between broader biological constraints, the communicative needs of speakers, and the environment, and are more diachronic tendencies than inviolable synchronic rules. What's more, a lot of the assumptions seem to be driven by some sense of theoretical niceness that has no apparent evidential basis whatsoever. For example, as I said in this thread, there seems no reason to assume that humans don't store redundant lexical information rather than applying complex rules in many cases:

http://zbb.spinnwebe.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36507

And some of the current theoretical preferences seem to me to be truly bizarre. Take, for example, the assumption that any feature framework should be binary in nature. I think it's widely recognised that, at least at the phonetic (production) level, there are gradients rather than discrete points. But even if we assume that there is some universal underlying set of discrete points, why this obsession with binary ones?

Take +-high, +-low. These are used in some features to differentiate, say, the front vowels i e a. But this is nonsense, because it is not physically possible to produce a consonant or vowel that is +high +low for most definitions of those features. The only reason for these two features to be separate is because of this insistence on binarity, which is not supported by any evidence whatsoever. A ternary feature would cover exactly the same range of sounds but recognise directly the impossibility of +high +low. This pattern is repeated for other sets of incompatible binary features, such as +constricted glottis / +spread glottis, which should also be a single ternary feature IMO, if we have to have such a feature theory. How can the people creating these theories consistently fake ternary ones in this way without being tempted to take the logical step of combining them?

Exactly the same argument can be levelled against strict binary branching in syntactic theories, and it has been. I particularly enjoyed reading the following book, which argues for grammar based on constructions (essentially templates) which need not be binary:

http://www.amazon.com/Radical-Construct ... 0198299540

In the process, the book strongly attacks the current notions about Universal Grammar.

EDIT: I should say that my sound change applier does not assume binary features, mainly because I don't like the binarity assumption. It has some special syntactic sugar for them, but you can have features with as many potential values as you like (well, up to an architecture/compiler dependent limit of at least 536,870,910, assuming you don't run out of memory before you've defined that many value names).

EDIT EDIT: This book may also be worth reading for arguing against the penchant for binary branching and nulls all over the place, although I found it to be somewhat repetitive and monotonous:

http://www.amazon.com/Syntactic-Relatio ... 0521608295

Re: resources

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 6:19 pm
by chris_notts
Some interesting stuff is available here:

http://www.unm.edu/~wcroft/WACpubs.html

The page lists publications of William Croft, who wrote "Radical Construction Grammar". Some of the articles / texts are downloadable in PDF form.

Re: resources

Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 3:44 pm
by TomHChappell
chris_notts wrote:Exactly the same argument can be levelled against strict binary branching in syntactic theories, and it has been. I particularly enjoyed reading the following book, which argues for grammar based on constructions (essentially templates) which need not be binary:

http://www.amazon.com/Radical-Construct ... 0198299540

In the process, the book strongly attacks the current notions about Universal Grammar.
So far there's only one customer review, and
that customer wrote:my graduate level colleagues and I loathe it.
If you like it I think you should put in your own review.

http://www.amazon.com/Syntactic-Relatio ... 0521608295 has not yet been reviewed by an Amazon customer.

But, here are some other reviews:
http://www.sil.org:8090/silebr/2005/silebr2005-006
http://www.cercles.com/review/r35/matthews.html

Re: resources

Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 5:14 pm
by chris_notts
TomHChappell wrote:If you like it I think you should put in your own review.
Maybe I should do, although as a Englishman I don't use Amazon.com much... I don't think the Amazon sites share reviews, which is a pity. So any review on Amazon.co.uk won't make it onto Amazon.com or vice versa.

I really did enjoy the book. It wasn't purely dedicated to arguing against generative grammar and other theories, since it was an exposition of Croft's own view of what a theory of syntax should look like. Of course some of the book does justify why he thinks his approach is better than other approaches, but it's not purely an attack on other theories. But it was refreshing because Croft starts by taking the typological facts available seriously and moving from there, whereas a lot of other theories of syntax (and the people who develop them) seem to start with a few languages and then try to shoe-horn everything else in somehow.
The following is the most important sentence in that review:
As may already be apparent from this summary, the discussion can be rambling at times.
"Rambling" is a word I would happily use to describe that book, although parts of it were interesting.

Re: resources

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 3:08 pm
by Ser
Old Spanish

http://mgarci.aas.duke.edu/cibertextos/ ... ST-MSS.HTM
Online version of the Cantar de Mio Çid. To the right, an HTML-friendly transcription of Menéndez Pidal's own transcription of the manuscript. To the left, a conversion of this transcription to somewhat modern orthography with modern word spacing by the editor.

http://users.servicios.retecal.es/jomic ... tiguos.htm
Colourful site with lots of notes on Medieval Spain and some fragments

http://www.archive.org/details/manualel ... d00menuoft
Online version of Menéndez Pidal's Manual elemental de gramática histórica española (1904).

Google Books previews:
http://books.google.com/books?id=e9HGPw ... &q&f=false
David Pharies' A brief history of the Spanish language (2007) (also available in Spanish)

http://books.google.com/books?id=Zjcrhy ... &q&f=false
Ralph Penny's A history of the Spanish language (2002)

http://books.google.com/books?id=_QkNAA ... &q&f=false
Paul Lloyd's From Latin to Spanish - Vol. I: Historical Phonology and Morphology of the Spanish language (1987)

Early Modern Spanish

http://www.antoniodenebrija.org/index.html
Site on Antonio de Nebrija. You can find an online version of his GRAMMATICA (late 15th century), albeit greatly adapted to modern orthography. (Things like double <ss> are conserved, but you can see some clear editing here.)

http://bibliotecadigitalhispanica.bne.e ... ePid2=true
Scanned version of Nebrija's book, thanks to the Bilioteca Nacional de España.

http://quijote.bne.es/libro.html
Online version of EL INGENIOSO HIDALGO DON QVIXOTE DE LA MANCHA, and the second part, DEL INGENIOSO CAVALLERO DON QVIXOTE DE LA MANCHA (early 17th century), by the BNE. Nevermind the background music.

Re: resources

Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 1:52 pm
by dhok
Anybody got something on Yup'ik?

Re: resources

Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 6:01 pm
by Hakaku
mokozelän daiñu wrote:Any resources on the Ryukyuan languages? Much appreciated. =]
Here are the resources I had posted on the KneeQuickie (except the standard Japanese portion wasn't me) with a few edits and several with a ton of additions. The list features only articles and documents that are available online (a select few might require university or library access), and excludes most general wordlists (since we could find a few hundred lists for Okinawan).

This list is kept up to date and focuses primarily on Southern Japanese, Ryukyuan and Hachijo. Some titles have been modified to be more meaningful to English readers. If someone who is a researcher stumbles upon this list, please consider making your work openly accessible.

Japanese-Ryukyuan
An introduction to Ryukyuan languages, by Michinori Shimoji & Thomas Pellard
Origins of the Verbalizer Affixes in the Japonic Languages, by Tyler Lau

Amami
Hachijo-Daito
Japanese
General Dialects
Kagoshima Dialect
Miyako
Okinawan Tarama-Minna Yaeyama Yonaguni
Edit: This list is now maintained here: http://www.jlect.com/resources.php

Re: resources

Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 10:42 pm
by Shm Jay
An introduction to Sanskrit.

Re: resources

Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 11:52 pm
by dhok
chris_notts wrote:
TomHChappell wrote:Oh, boy. :? :roll: :(
Or, should that be:
Oh, boy! :D 8)
:) The argument the author makes agrees with my view of linguistics in general.

Undoubtedly there are processing constraints for languages - no-one has found a stack-based human language for example, and almost certainly there isn't one. In the case of phonetics and phonology, the patterns are also driven by the ability of humans to perceive and produce different sounds. And the evidence is that there is almost certainly some kind of basic built-in language faculties, since there are types of brain damage that only seem to affect language use.
What's a stack-base language?

Re: resources

Posted: Sat Dec 25, 2010 12:09 pm
by jmcd
A stack is a concept in computing. So here it's a reference to computer languages.

Re: resources

Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 5:00 am
by chris_notts
jmcd wrote:A stack is a concept in computing. So here it's a reference to computer languages.
More specifically: a stack is a last in - first out structure. Essentially, it's a bit like a pile of papers on your desk - the last thing you add onto the top of the pile is the first thing you take off.

Stacks are used for a wide variety of things in computer. Commonly, they are a way of structuring the calls to functions or the passing of information. Consider the following commands:

"+" takes the top 2 things on the stack and then adds the result of adding them onto the top
"*" takes the top 2 things on the stack and then adds the result of multiplying them onto the top
push adds something new onto the top of the stack

Now look at the following sequence:

push 2
push 3
*
push 5
push 6
*
+

The result of executing this is (2 * 3) + (5 * 6) = 36. As it is executed, the stack goes through the following states:

[2]
[3,2]
[6]
[5, 6]
[6, 5, 6]
[30, 6]
[36]

(here, the newest item on the stack is to the left, and older items are to the right)

This is essentially how the instruction sets of high level virtual machines normally work. But no human language would work like this, probably because of the demands on working memory.

Re: resources

Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 10:08 am
by Cedh

Re: resources

Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 10:51 am
by Astraios
^ It's so weird being able to half-understand a dead language.

Re: resources

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 6:42 pm
by masako
http://www.arabic-keyboard.org/arabic/

A nicely done introductory course to Arabic.

Re: resources

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 6:53 pm
by TomHChappell
http://cals.conlang.org/ Conlang atlas of language structures
http://ling.uni-konstanz.de/pages/proj/projiws.htm Interaction of the semantics of words and sentences
http://ling.uni-konstanz.de/pages/proj/intonlex.htm Intonation lexicon
http://ling.uni-konstanz.de/pages/proj/ ... ation.html Variation and evolution in the lexicon
http://typo.uni-konstanz.de/archive/intro/ Universals archive
http://typo.uni-konstanz.de/rara/intro/ Grammatic rarity cabinet (GRAMMATISCHE RARITÄTENKABINETT)
http://ling.uni-konstanz.de/pages/home/ ... mentation/ Online Documentation of Kolyma Yukaghir
http://www.sil.org/linguistics/Glossary ... sticTerms/ Glossary of linguistic terms -- SIL international

Re: resources

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 12:06 pm
by dhok
If you're looking for a good word generator, this works fairly well. I don't think it handles Unicode, and it was originally a Dwarf Fortress tool, but it might be useful. Play around with it.

Re: resources

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 5:41 pm
by Jetboy
dhokarena56 wrote:If you're looking for a good word generator, this works fairly well. I don't think it handles Unicode, and it was originally a Dwarf Fortress tool, but it might be useful. Play around with it.
While this does indeed look useful, I'm afraid that, in my infinite ignorance of technology, I can't figure out how to run it (on a Mac). I've tried directing it to the proper file in terminal, but whenever I try to get it to do something, terminal tells me,
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/Resources/Python.app/Contents/MacOS/Python: can't open file 'DFLang': [Errno 2] No such file or directory

Re: resources

Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 8:38 am
by masako

Re: resources

Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 2:49 pm
by Jipí
Der Digitale Wenker-Atlas (Background):
http://www.diwa.info/DiWA/atlas.aspx

Warning: Needs Windows, since the installation for the JPEG2000 plugin you need is .exes all the way down.

Re: resources

Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 8:28 am
by the duke of nuke
cedh audmanh wrote:Recordings of Babylonian and Assyrian poetry (University of London)
Magnificent. Thanks for the link.