The CBB

I think "breathe" may be the most frequently misspelled word in the English language. I very much doubt it. [and not just because I don't think I've ever seen it misspelled] I think the most misspelled word is probably going to be one of three things: - a word with a more common homophone spelled d...

I'm trying to create a new conlang. It's VSO (mostly) and I'm wanting to use auxiliary verbs to indicate aspect. However my verbs are fairly bare and don't have things like number, gender, or mood attached to them (it's a very isolating language). What I'm trying to figure out is if what I'm trying...

How about this idea: How about this idea: instead of continually revising this weird religious dogma - which has, let's remember, absolutely zero historical basis, zero support from experts in the various fields, and as we see continually zero predictive power - why not just admit that it's wrong? ...

A bit late, I'm afraid, but if anyone's interested the National Theatre is showing This House on youtube - it's up until 7pm tomorrow, which I gather is 2pm on the American east coast. I don't know if that means you have to start watching by then or finish. It's about 2h40 in length. Anyway, it's qu...

I'm thinking about diachronic conlanging. If the proto-language has /o:/, what could condition that the/o:/ changes to /u:/ in some environments and /uo/ in some environments? Well, it's best to think of this sort of thing not as a phoneme changing to either X or Y depending on environment, but as ...

And yet, umlaut is very widely used for languages outside of Germanic. Indeed, it's probably more common than 'metaphony' (or, indeed, 'vowel affection'). Similarly, I don't see why 'liaison' can't be used for non-French languages. We don't need to have a special unique vocabulary just for French! P...

Just to add: I don't agree that we need a theory to look at languages. I think we do need concepts , but not necessarily a theory (not that snytactic theories are really theories anyway!). As an analogy: let's say you tell me you like, say, the dance of the sugar plum fairy from The Nutcracker, and...

Why does it sound odd to you to say "He did it somewhere", but not "he did it here"? Or "Because of what did you do it?" but not "he did it because of his hope to eat"? Are you sure you're not just being informed by English's idiosyncracies? Regarding the example in your next post: surely, if "spee...

Hey it's been a while since I've been on.. And I have a quick question. So a conlang I've been working on has no adverbs or adjectives, instead it uses nouns for both of these categories. My question is: What might be a good way to handle pro-adverbs like where/how/therefore/etc? I was thinking of ...

And as for historical wrongdoing by others - sure, the word 'shame' is found now and then, but actually no, I don't think it's talked about much. I think both sides of the debate are more likely to use concepts like guilt, regret and debt, rather than shame. Indeed, the idea of feeling shame over t...

"Possessive clause" is a semantic~ish term to me, "a clause that expresses possession". Apparently I should have said "a clause expressing clausal possession" or something. "Existential clause" seems to be a syntactic label (in this discussion). That's not how I was using it, no. I was using it as ...

Just to add: I don't agree that we need a theory to look at languages. I think we do need concepts , but not necessarily a theory (not that snytactic theories are really theories anyway!). As an analogy: let's say you tell me you like, say, the dance of the sugar plum fairy from The Nutcracker, and ...

I find the construction easy to understand when I think of it as "Of the man, there exists a house of his", thereby retaining -(s)i as a modifier of "house"(!), meaning 'The man has a house'. If your struggle is that "Of the man... of his" seems horribly redundant to you, you may recall many simila...

I guess I'd kind of like to understand what you were talking about, because then I might (or might not) find it interesting! If nothing else, it would be nice to know if you found my posts on what I thought might be the topic interesting, or if they were just a waste of time. EDIT: to take another a...

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are trying to say. Could you maybe try saying it in a non-theoretical-framework way? It may be that whatever framework you're using here is creating an unnecessary confusion both for you, and for us in understanding you? I'm not even that confident around your ...

What is a good lexical source for an obviative marker? Yønsen has a proximate/obviate system but I don't know how to derive it in the protolang. I would assume msot often a demonstrative, like 'that' or 'yon'. An interesting route would be from a possessive, as possession is often associated with d...

How is that obvious? "Shame" is a classic example of a thick moral concept - it's a complicated concept that only exists within a particular culture and is extremely difficult to translate. Indeed, I'd say it's only just hanging on to existence in modern Western culture (philosophers have a concept...

If Finnish had a native word for shame, what would it be? I mean, obviously at least back in Proto-Finnic there must've been one How is that obvious? "Shame" is a classic example of a thick moral concept - it's a complicated concept that only exists within a particular culture and is extremely diff...

Yes, obviously the law in question is primarily an issue with stringed instruments, but I tried to come up with a more ordinary scenario, rather than having it just be 'a cool fact about acoustics'.

Anyway, he's something entirely non-linguistic. I actually learned this a few months ago (or maybe late last year), but I forgot, and have just been reminded of it again. So, you're on a building site, let's say. A guy wants to lift a heavy pallet by attaching them to a cord with a hook on the end. ...