LCK Two

[Chargone]

yay! ordered!

now i just have to wait a month or more for it to show up.

seriously, Amazon's shipping rates are insane. order three books for about 60 NZD total, pay about 30NZD in shipping for 'standard' shipping if i wait for them all to be sent at once. (i could have them show up in 2-4 days and each be sent as it came available if i was willing to pay in excess of 120 Just For Shipping. of three books. all paperbacks. utter madness. (shipping costs to australia, last i checked which was a while ago, are about 1/5th of that.))

oh well, at least i get my shiny books.

eventually.

[Lyra]

Nay!
I need more mooneys. :'(

One day...

~Lyra

[kaleissin]

It's not available on amazon.co.uk yet. I prefer ordering from there since it's closer to me so I get it quicker with lower freight costs.

Please make it available there too.

[zompist]

It's not available on amazon.co.uk yet. I prefer ordering from there since it's closer to me so I get it quicker with lower freight costs.

Please make it available there too.

I've specified this, but it'll take longer for the Amazon Europe pages to come up. Check back in a week or two.

[finlay]

It's not available on amazon.co.uk yet. I prefer ordering from there since it's closer to me so I get it quicker with lower freight costs.

Please make it available there too.

Eh? It was for me, although maybe that was just the kindle version. Still need to actually order it though.

[zompist]

Indeed, here it is.

[Ser]

heck, even trying to FIND grammars is a bit of a mission in and of itself, it seems. let alone affordable ones.

There are things such as affordable grammars??
WHAT YEAR IS THIS?

The Academies sell the 1000 pages-long Manual version of their grammar for about US$22... (Though Amazon seems to be offering it for $13 + shipping.) Mind you that the printing is not exactly fine-grained, but a bit dirty-looking, and the paper is of lower quality than normal for grammars this big, which likely explains the cost. Perfectly legible though.

Although, the comprehensive 4000 pages-long version costs $120-180, of course.

[Mornche Geddick]

My copy arrived yesterday. CreateSpace seems to be really efficient! I've read through to "Life Cycles" and so far the linguistics is *not* beyond me. Though that may be because I've been steadily going through LKC's biblio (and that reminds me: I need to renew Brown and Levinson). Congrats and a bouquet to Zompist for another excellent read.

[finlay]

heck, even trying to FIND grammars is a bit of a mission in and of itself, it seems. let alone affordable ones.

There are things such as affordable grammars??
WHAT YEAR IS THIS?

The Academies sell the 1000 pages-long Manual version of their grammar for about US$22... (Though Amazon seems to be offering it for $13 + shipping.) Mind you that the printing is not exactly fine-grained, but a bit dirty-looking, and the paper is of lower quality than normal for grammars this big, which likely explains the cost. Perfectly legible though.

Although, the comprehensive 4000 pages-long version costs $120-180, of course.

Protip: in English, compounds almost never take plurals (the main exceptions are when the plural is irregular). Hence, "4000-page-long version". It's one of those stranger, less immediately useful rules, that you're not likely to be taught explicitly.

[Ser]

Erm, I knew that rule explicitly actually. I just forget ~ get influenced by Spanish.

According to G. Pullum compounds with a plural modifier can happen in British English though...

[dhok]

Seems I accidentally ordered two copies. They've both been shipped...
...oops.

[Aurora Rossa]

Seems I accidentally ordered two copies. They've both been shipped...
...oops.

Give one to me.

[Bristel]

Just ordered one copy. I'm excited, even though I shirked my duty in proofreading, so I feel a bit bad for that.

It's not that I was lazy, I got up to the part about Polysynthesis before realizing that I couldn't actually do anything but proofread for spelling and typos, and possibly formatting, but nothing factual or logic based.

[Thry]

Seems I accidentally ordered two copies. They've both been shipped...
...oops.

Your brain must've confused LCK two for two LCK xD.

[Xephyr]

Argh, this is bugging the hell out of me! On page 168, where you give the three examples of polysynthesis in Ojibwe, Greenlandic, and Koasati. I know I've seen those exact three examples somewhere else, but I can't remember where! What source did you get them from?

Btw, a minor correction: on page 75 you say that Fanagalo is based on Xhosa. One can argue all day over whether or not they're actually different languages, I suppose, but putting that aside, everything I've ever read about Fanagalo has said it was based on Zulu...

EDIT:

I use logographic to emphasize that these writing systems represent words, not ideas. Even more narrowly, the symbols of Maya, Chinese, and Sumerian writing largely represent single syllables that are also MORPHEMES (units of meaning). But SYLLABOMORPHIC is awkward, and doesn't quite cover Egyptian, where some glyphs represent multi-syllabic roots.

What do you mean here? Are you suggesting that Sumerian and Mayan lack glyphs representing multi-syllabic roots? Cause that's not true. Sumerian, especially, abounds in them. Also, what is your source for the statement that Mayan and Sumerian syllabograms are linked to morphemes? I know this was the case with some glyphs in Sumerian, but I do not believe that it was very widespread throughout the orthography, and the extent to which it was many people say is due to the obscured phonetic nature of Sumerian.

[zompist]

Argh, this is bugging the hell out of me! On page 168, where you give the three examples of polysynthesis in Ojibwe, Greenlandic, and Koasati. I know I've seen those exact three examples somewhere else, but I can't remember where! What source did you get them from?

From the ZBB's own Whimemsz (with his permission).

Btw, a minor correction: on page 75 you say that Fanagalo is based on Xhosa. One can argue all day over whether or not they're actually different languages, I suppose, but putting that aside, everything I've ever read about Fanagalo has said it was based on Zulu...

D'oh. I don't even know how that happened.

EDIT:

I use logographic to emphasize that these writing systems represent words, not ideas. Even more narrowly, the symbols of Maya, Chinese, and Sumerian writing largely represent single syllables that are also MORPHEMES (units of meaning). But SYLLABOMORPHIC is awkward, and doesn't quite cover Egyptian, where some glyphs represent multi-syllabic roots.

What do you mean here? Are you suggesting that Sumerian and Mayan lack glyphs representing multi-syllabic roots? Cause that's not true. Sumerian, especially, abounds in them. Also, what is your source for the statement that Mayan and Sumerian syllabograms are linked to morphemes? I know this was the case with some glyphs in Sumerian, but I do not believe that it was very widespread throughout the orthography, and the extent to which it was many people say is due to the obscured phonetic nature of Sumerian.

I'm pretty sure I'm reproducing frequent statements by Peter Daniels back on sci.lang. Checking WWS right now, you're right about Sumerian (and the article on Maya is horribly scanty but does suggest lots of reliance on syllabograms).

[Whimemsz]

Woo, got my copy!

Incidentally, now that the book's out, you should really update the resources page on the website; it's almost a year out of date now (while most of the sites don't seem to have vanished, a few have, like Geoff's planet-creation guide).

[ná'oolkiłí]

Mine just arrived raddd~

[Bristel]

Just got mine yesterday afternoon, looked at the Table of Contents, and that's it...

Going to Starbucks though, so maybe I'll read it there tonight.

[Gray Richardson]

I am really loving the LCK 2. It is excellent so far. Just finished the chapter on aspect, and it is a very good treatment.

One slight errata (erratum?): the example given for PROSPECTIVE perfect aspect on p. 136 "He'll have finished cleaning" is actually an example of future RETROSPECTIVE perfect aspect. At the future reference moment, the action has happened in the past. Compare to the present retrospective "he has finished cleaning."

PROSPECTIVE involves an action that has not happened yet that is relevant to the present or reference moment — often an intended or contemplated action (though not always). The usual examples given are "I am about to clean," or in some places "I'm fixing to clean." Both are examples of near-future prospective. For more indefinite future prospective an example is "I'm going to clean."

Some might argue that "I'm going to clean" is an alternate construction for expressing future tense. But it's really prospective perfect aspect. And you can show this by changing the tense (because the aspect of a verb is independent of tense); ie: "I was going to clean," "I will be going to clean."

Prospective aspect often shows the intent of the speaker with respect to a contemplated future action as relevant to the moment of utterance (or past or future reference moment), an action that is (was or will be) intended which may be interrupted or may not actually come to pass, ie: "he was about to conclude his masterpiece, when he was interrupted by a visitor from Porlock." Although, it doesn't necessarily have to involve intent or foreknowledge, for instance: "He didn't know it at the time, but he was going to wreck that car."

[Ser]

Future tense prospective aspect.

[Gray Richardson]

Hi Serafin, I'm not sure what you are saying or asking. But please be aware that the aspect and the tense of a verb are independent of each other. You can change the tense of a verb without changing the aspect. In English, the tense of a verb in either the retrospective or prospective aspects can be changed by changing the helper verb:

. . . . . . Retrospective . . . . . . . Prospective
Past: . . He had finished . . . . . .He was about to finish, He was going to finish
Present: He has finished . . . . . .He is about to finish, he is going to finish
Future: . He will have finished . . He will be about to finish, he will be going to finish

The thing to realize about the perfect aspects is that they all involve a verb that is performed in a different time frame from the present or moment of reference, but which is still relevant to the referenced moment.

The retrospective perfect looks backward to a verb that was performed in the past that is relevant to the present (or referenced moment). And by "past" I mean subjective past, that is, at the referenced moment, the verb has already happened, but which could still be in the future of the speaker. For instance: "Tomorrow morning at 9:00 am, I will have brushed my teeth." This is an example of future retrospective. Because at the referenced moment (9:00 am tomorrow) the verb (brush) has already happened in the past, even though it is technically in the future from "now," the moment of utterance.

The prospective perfect, on the other hand, looks forward to a verb that has not yet been performed, and which may or may not come to pass, but which is relevant to the present moment either due to the intent or contemplation of the performer (I am going to marry her someday), or an irony (I was about to disarm the bomb, when it exploded) or other situation of which the subject may or may not be aware (I didn't know it then, but I was about to meet my wife).