LCK Two

[zompist]

Thanks for the suggestions... I will go over them in more detail once I finish writing the stuff I already know.

(I'm up to about page 124; I'm in the middle of a chapter on Sign.)

[Wattmann]

Oh, do please include something on weird and nonstandard MSAs. Preferably ones that don't rely on the three values of A, S and O we're commonly using. That would be wonderful.

[zompist]

Er, Multiple Sequence Alignment? Modern Standard Arabic? Multiple Systems Atrophy?

[Bob Johnson]

morphosyntactic alignment

[zompist]

Ah OK. I'm pretty sure that's been suggested above, and it's already planned for the book.

[Bristel]

Definitely something on Tripartite alignment. I know I've said this before on here or in a tweet, but please do.

The idea behind that alignment isn't well described, and I don't believe that it's only found in the one style that is written about on Wikipedia.

[Herr Dunkel]

Oligosynthesis

[dhok]

There aren't any natural languages that feature oligosynthesis, tho...

[Herr Dunkel]

There aren't any natural languages that feature oligosynthesis, tho...

Ithkuil? It's no natlang, but it's somewhat oligosynthetic (as long as you don't add specialised roots)

[Grimalkin]

There aren't any natural languages that feature oligosynthesis, tho...

Ithkuil? It's no natlang, but...

There aren't any natural languages that feature oligosynthesis, tho...

Ithkuil? It's no natlang, but...

natural languages

natlangs

beep boop bop.

[ol bofosh]

Two ideas that have come to me after reading old LCK:

1. More on punctuation marks and alternatives.

2. There is good information about relative clauses, but what about other subordinate clauses like complement, adverb and embedded question?

[Chargone]

also, copulas. not sure how much about them was in the first LCK, but those things are an absolute pain to figure out. they confuse me so. worse than subordinate clauses actually. (subordinate clauses are a pain to sort out, but once wrestled into submission aren't a big deal. copulas continue to baffle me.)

i'll admit i might have more hope if i knew another language that dealt with them differently, but as a monolingual English L1 type person, i would greatly appreciate a better explanation of them than the wikipedia page, which just leaves me baffled and confused. (doesn't help that English uses the same structure, or at least very similar ones, for a bunch of non-copula things...)

[Bob Johnson]

also, copulas. not sure how much about them was in the first LCK, but those things are an absolute pain to figure out. they confuse me so.

Hmm, going into some varied examples might be a good idea. Show how other languages handle it in lots of different ways, so people can see ideas for langs that aren't just relexes of "there is a cat here" "this is a cat" "the cat is red".

[Chuma]

The essay collection, yeah... I wus gonna...
It would be cool though, maybe that will happen some other time.

As for LCK2, hmm... One thing I've been thinking of writing myself, that you could probably do much better, is a guide for "how to not speak English" (not to be confused with "how not to speak English"). Basically, we might suspect that many readers are native speakers of English, or some related language, and it might be nice to point out all the things in English that are not universal, or even common.

For one example, I'm still baffled by my discovery that English is one of very few languages (perhaps even the only one) which has words for "he" and "she", but does not have gender on nouns. I'm sure you know a ton of other examples, and you can check the thread about non-European phonologies for some more.

Oh, and maybe a guide to pronouncing some non-English sounds? Like, aspiration, I've never figured that one out. But I guess that might be difficult to do in text form.

[jal]

"how to not speak English"

"How to avoid recreating English" would be better, imho.

For one example, I'm still baffled by my discovery that English is one of very few languages (perhaps even the only one) which has words for "he" and "she", but does not have gender on nouns.

You should do some research. Although there seems to be a positive correlation, these two maps show that English is far from the only one (and in fact, WALS clasifies English as having a sex-based gender system, although I'm not sure on what grounds).

Oh, and maybe a guide to pronouncing some non-English sounds? Like, aspiration, I've never figured that one out. But I guess that might be difficult to do in text form.

Aspiration is not a sound but a phonetic feature, and it is very much present in English (and most other Germanic languages).


JAL

[finlay]

On the grounds of pronouns. Flimsy, yeah...

Oh, and aspiration is definitely present in English. As a native speaker you will probably have more trouble distinguishing and [p] than you will distinguishing [p] and [pʰ].

[sirred]

I suppose also the few English words (most or all borrowings) which vary by gender (blond/blonde, widower/widow, fiancé/fiancée, actor/actress, hunter/huntress). There are also the archaic -tor/-trix pairs (administrator/administratrix, aviator/aviatrix, executor/executrix).

[Chargone]

I suppose also the few English words (most or all borrowings) which vary by gender (blond/blonde, widower/widow, fiancé/fiancée, actor/actress, hunter/huntress). There are also the archaic -tor/-trix pairs (administrator/administratrix, aviator/aviatrix, executor/executrix).

then there's all the animal words, if they count? cow/bull goose/gander etc. (though i suppose that may be lexical rather than grammatical?)

[Melteor]

also, copulas. not sure how much about them was in the first LCK, but those things are an absolute pain to figure out. they confuse me so. worse than subordinate clauses actually. (subordinate clauses are a pain to sort out, but once wrestled into submission aren't a big deal. copulas continue to baffle me.)

i'll admit i might have more hope if i knew another language that dealt with them differently, but as a monolingual English L1 type person, i would greatly appreciate a better explanation of them than the wikipedia page, which just leaves me baffled and confused. (doesn't help that English uses the same structure, or at least very similar ones, for a bunch of non-copula things...)

Do you mean something like this? http://books.google.com.pe/books?id=7nl ... e&q&f=true
I would like more on discourse phenomena and suprasegmental features, or maybe some cognitive linguistics...But maybe that's too much.

[Ser]

I suppose also the few English words (most or all borrowings) which vary by gender (blond/blonde, widower/widow, fiancé/fiancée, actor/actress, hunter/huntress). There are also the archaic -tor/-trix pairs (administrator/administratrix, aviator/aviatrix, executor/executrix).

then there's all the animal words, if they count? cow/bull goose/gander etc. (though i suppose that may be lexical rather than grammatical?)

But heck, but if you include words like those kinds of cases even freaking Chinese would be analyzed as having natural gender. :/ It distinguishes boyfriend and girlfriend, for example. As far as I know, yeah, it's only because of the distinction in personal pronouns that English is classified that way on the WALS...

[linguoboy]

I suppose also the few English words (most or all borrowings) which vary by gender (blond/blonde, widower/widow, fiancé/fiancée, actor/actress, hunter/huntress). There are also the archaic -tor/-trix pairs (administrator/administratrix, aviator/aviatrix, executor/executrix).

then there's all the animal words, if they count? cow/bull goose/gander etc. (though i suppose that may be lexical rather than grammatical?)

Except that they control agreement. You might use "it" to refer back to "the bull" (particularly if you were a city slicker), but you would never use "she".

[Chargone]

also, copulas. not sure how much about them was in the first LCK, but those things are an absolute pain to figure out. they confuse me so. worse than subordinate clauses actually. (subordinate clauses are a pain to sort out, but once wrestled into submission aren't a big deal. copulas continue to baffle me.)

i'll admit i might have more hope if i knew another language that dealt with them differently, but as a monolingual English L1 type person, i would greatly appreciate a better explanation of them than the wikipedia page, which just leaves me baffled and confused. (doesn't help that English uses the same structure, or at least very similar ones, for a bunch of non-copula things...)

Do you mean something like this? http://books.google.com.pe/books?id=7nl ... e&q&f=true
I would like more on discourse phenomena and suprasegmental features, or maybe some cognitive linguistics...But maybe that's too much.

'you have reached a page that is either unavailable for viewing or you have reached your viewing limit for this book.'

so sayth your link.

[SlayerXX33398]

I can't wait for this to be released. I love the original LCK, but there are many questions I have (which mostly come from my lack of knowledge of English grammar, in linguistic terms anyway, despite it being my L1, and my problems translating my own stuff), such as, language families, writing systems, and some of the more "cultural" aspects of language, rather than the "grammatical" aspects. So, this will be another $15 (or however much this one is) to feed this site, which is money well spent. (To be honest, I still have yet to buy the PCK, just a lack of motive.)

[Melteor]

also, copulas. not sure how much about them was in the first LCK, but those things are an absolute pain to figure out. they confuse me so. worse than subordinate clauses actually. (subordinate clauses are a pain to sort out, but once wrestled into submission aren't a big deal. copulas continue to baffle me.)

i'll admit i might have more hope if i knew another language that dealt with them differently, but as a monolingual English L1 type person, i would greatly appreciate a better explanation of them than the wikipedia page, which just leaves me baffled and confused. (doesn't help that English uses the same structure, or at least very similar ones, for a bunch of non-copula things...)

Do you mean something like this? http://books.google.com.pe/books?id=7nl ... e&q&f=true
I would like more on discourse phenomena and suprasegmental features, or maybe some cognitive linguistics...But maybe that's too much.

'you have reached a page that is either unavailable for viewing or you have reached your viewing limit for this book.'

so sayth your link.

Huh, it still works for me. Thanks for mentioning it. It's a preview of the essay 'Roles & Identificational Sentences' by Shigeru Sakahara on page 262 of 'Spaces, worlds & grammar' by Gilles Fauconnier. It's a neat essay on some basic functions of copular sentences, which are Sakahara's professed research interest. The languages compared are English and Japanese, but the English examples are very straightforward and I like the insights. You can view it in light of the arguments against E-Prime which wiki has a good bit on. Also, Alfred Korzybski's page. I think Shigeru's article gives a fair representation of predications and identification and a plausible raisin d'être, and also a neat revision based in cognitive linguistics, but Alfred's philosophizing on it is very interesting too. Also, check out wiki's pages on predication and identification, the predication one in particular talks about 'kinds' and stuff.

Maybe it's because you're in a different country and you can find it if you try searching for it.

[Latinist13]

I think you should include more on valency reduction and morphosyntax. As for a title, I kinda like "Advanced Language Construction," but that's just me.

Btw, have you thought about writing a PCK II, perchance? I wouldn't mind seeing a more in depth treatment on class structures, politics, economics, and food. Most certainly food. That seemed to recieve the short end of the stick compared to other aspects of culture.

EDIT: I'd like to see more about pragmatics and discourse across languages in the next book. No offense, Zomp, but there seemed to be an overabundance of English examples in that section of the LCK.