(L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

A forum for discussing linguistics or just languages in general.
Salmoneus
MVP
MVP
Posts: 3030
Joined: 19 Sep 2011 19:37

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

Nortaneous wrote: 06 Jan 2022 01:31
Salmoneus wrote: 06 Jan 2022 00:52 Rounding doesn't seem to be that salient back there, and rounding and derounding across time and between languages seems fairly common. Americans, for instance, just furiously deround every damn low vowel they come across. [PALM? No rounding. LOT? No rounding. CLOTH? No rounding. CAUGHT? No rounding! (yes, I know that's not all Americans, but...)]
Not only is it not all Americans, rounding of START is common in the US (in addition to preservation of rounding on CLOTH and CAUGHT)
And iirc some Southerners there's a wire-war merger? I don't know if that's a derounding of 'war' or a rounding of 'wire', though.

[I didn't know that about START. Where does that happen? And do any Americans have rounded CLOTH yet keep it separate from CAUGHT?]
Nortaneous
greek
greek
Posts: 674
Joined: 14 Aug 2010 13:28

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Nortaneous »

Salmoneus wrote: 06 Jan 2022 13:06 And iirc some Southerners there's a wire-war merger? I don't know if that's a derounding of 'war' or a rounding of 'wire', though.
That's not something I've heard of before, but I'd expect a fire-far merger to be common in most places PRICE monophthongization has reached fixation.
[I didn't know that about START. Where does that happen? And do any Americans have rounded CLOTH yet keep it separate from CAUGHT?]
Mid-Atlantic - my START and CLOTH/THOUGHT are something like [ɔɹ] and [ɔə]. (dhok once registered surprise at my pronunciation of "coffee".) Maybe some AAVE as well.

PRICE monophthongization exists here but hasn't reached fixation, and under monophthongization 'fire' and 'far' are still distinct - something like [far fɔr]. ([æ a ɑ ɔ] are all distinct, although some varieties have diphthongization of [æ] and/or [ɔ], and others have a contrast between [æ] and [eə], although I think that's too far north to have PRICE monophthongization even optionally. Also, 'flour' can be monophthongized to [flær], although /æ/ not before /n r/ doesn't get much flatter than [æə] - which is still distinct from [eə], but difficult to distinguish from [æ]. I have been accused - by a ling grad student from New Jersey who has phonemic /eə/, presumably from the TRAP-BATH split - of having a "Hal-howl merger", but I'm pretty sure I don't.)

Are CLOTH and THOUGHT distinguished anywhere in the US? If they are, I've never heard of this. (Parts of New England merge LOT into CLOTH/THOUGHT - I once saw a Dunkin Donuts promo in Boston for something called the "Gronk Chomp", which works for them but not for us - /grɔŋk tʃɔmp/ there, /grɔŋk tʃɑmp/ here. A cot-caught-merged copyeditor is possible in theory, but lol no, Gronk was playing for the Pats.)
Solarius
roman
roman
Posts: 1173
Joined: 30 Aug 2010 01:23

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Solarius »

Are there any natlangs with phonemic /tɹ̝̊/ or /dɹ̝/? I know Icelandic has /ɹ̝̊/ and /ɹ̝/.
User avatar
Creyeditor
MVP
MVP
Posts: 5091
Joined: 14 Aug 2012 19:32

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Creyeditor »

Phoible mentions Malagasy as having /ʈɹ̠̥/ and Wikipedia does not disagree.
Creyeditor
"Thoughts are free."
Produce, Analyze, Manipulate
1 :deu: 2 :eng: 3 :idn: 4 :fra: 4 :esp:
:con: Ook & Omlűt & Nautli languages & Sperenjas
[<3] Papuan languages, Morphophonology, Lexical Semantics [<3]
User avatar
Omzinesý
mongolian
mongolian
Posts: 4079
Joined: 27 Aug 2010 08:17
Location: nowhere [naʊhɪɚ]

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

Is version just a synonym for applicative in Caucasian linguistics?
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
User avatar
eldin raigmore
korean
korean
Posts: 6352
Joined: 14 Aug 2010 19:38
Location: SouthEast Michigan

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

Omzinesý wrote: 28 Jan 2022 02:39 Is version just a synonym for applicative in Caucasian linguistics?
The EUROTYP database says that in typologizing European languages, “version” should be considered synonymous with “voice”.

As far as I know that also applies to every Caucasian language I’ve seen “version” used about.

“Introversive version” is more like “middle voice”.

I can’t remember any applicative voice or circumstantial voice in any Caucasian language, but if you know of one, maybe those voices are called “versions” in some grammars of those languages.

….

Hope that helps?
User avatar
Omzinesý
mongolian
mongolian
Posts: 4079
Joined: 27 Aug 2010 08:17
Location: nowhere [naʊhɪɚ]

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

eldin raigmore wrote: 28 Jan 2022 14:25
Omzinesý wrote: 28 Jan 2022 02:39 Is version just a synonym for applicative in Caucasian linguistics?
The EUROTYP database says that in typologizing European languages, “version” should be considered synonymous with “voice”.

As far as I know that also applies to every Caucasian language I’ve seen “version” used about.

“Introversive version” is more like “middle voice”.

I can’t remember any applicative voice or circumstantial voice in any Caucasian language, but if you know of one, maybe those voices are called “versions” in some grammars of those languages.

….

Hope that helps?
That is a beginning.
The only Caucasian language I know is Georgian, and some of its "version vowels" are applicatives. But applicatives are voices. Apparently, some versions are other voices and possibly some aren't voices at all.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
User avatar
Omzinesý
mongolian
mongolian
Posts: 4079
Joined: 27 Aug 2010 08:17
Location: nowhere [naʊhɪɚ]

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

English (and Swedish in some words) has the -s in seas, besides, anyways...
It has probably been more productive. What did it code? Where does it derive from?
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
User avatar
Xonen
moderator
moderator
Posts: 1080
Joined: 16 May 2010 00:25

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Xonen »

Omzinesý wrote: 18 Feb 2022 16:56English (and Swedish in some words) has the -s in seas, besides, anyways...
It has probably been more productive. What did it code? Where does it derive from?
Genitive.
User avatar
Omzinesý
mongolian
mongolian
Posts: 4079
Joined: 27 Aug 2010 08:17
Location: nowhere [naʊhɪɚ]

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

Xonen wrote: 18 Feb 2022 18:17
Omzinesý wrote: 18 Feb 2022 16:56English (and Swedish in some words) has the -s in seas, besides, anyways...
It has probably been more productive. What did it code? Where does it derive from?
Genitive.
Was the genitive really used to form adverbials?
It doesn't sound like an intuitive etymology.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
Salmoneus
MVP
MVP
Posts: 3030
Joined: 19 Sep 2011 19:37

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

How is it unintuitive? A man of constant sorrow is a constantly sorrowful man; likewise, overseas events are events of over(the)sea, and so on.

There are even some relics with periphrastic genitives equivalent to adjectives and adverbs: "of late" for "lately", for instance. Doing something 'of a morning' is doing it... morningly (in the morning). However, a lot of 'of' adverbials have been replaced with 'in' or 'for' instead (if you are rescued IN time, it is a timely rescue; if you do something IN haste it is a done hastily).

It's not uncommon at all for nouns in the genitive to function as adjectives, and for adjectives to be identical to, or the basis of, adverbs. Indeed, most genitives have something modificatory about them.

It doesn't seem any more counterintuitive than Roman ablative adverbials, surely?
User avatar
Xonen
moderator
moderator
Posts: 1080
Joined: 16 May 2010 00:25

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Xonen »

Saami languages also use the genitive in an adverbial function in some cases, as in Inari lávvárdâh 'Saturday' vs. lávvárduv 'of Saturday', 'on Saturday'.

Then there's the fact that at least some of these English and Swedish adverbs are descended from prepositional phrases, and some prepositions historically governed the genitive: Swedish utomlands 'abroad', for instance, is quite transparently utom lands 'outside (of) the country'. I can't immediately tell for certain why the -s also appears in situations where the historical preposition would have governed some other case, such as the be- in besides, which goes back to Old English 'by', which in turn technically governed the dative... Although in this case, the dative and genitive for sīde were both sīdan, so it seems possible that the form was simply reanalyzed as a genitive at some point (and the ending then replaced with -s, as happened to all genitives).

Edit: ...and turns out there's even a Wikipedia article on this. Never mind the preposition explanation then, I guess. [¬.¬]
Salmoneus
MVP
MVP
Posts: 3030
Joined: 19 Sep 2011 19:37

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

'Besides' is probably a different phenomenon: a later suffixation of -s by analogy with other adverbs (at a point when it was just an adverb marker, not considered a genitive case). Since it wouldn't have been seen as a genitive, it doesn't matter that 'beside' should never have occured in the genitive.

It's possible that it's an intentional derivational marker to transform a preposition ('beside') into an adverb ('besides'). There's a tendency toward that distribution. However, I'm a bit skeptical, because in reality s-forms and s-less forms are both often either preposition or adverb: beside can be an adverb, and besides can be a preposition. There are even sigmatic forms that are rarely adverbs ('towards') and asigmatic forms that are rarely if ever prepositions ('forward'). So I think it's probably more likely that the sigmatic forms are just superfluous class marking by analogy with those adverbs that actually DID have one to begin with, and that prepositions and adverbs are fairly freely converted in English.

In other words, because some adverbs ended in -s, people just randomly stuck -s onto the end of anything that looked like an adverb, including a bunch of prepositions.

And then the real mystery is why they then also stuck -t on the end of that. [in particular, there are zero/-st doublets (among/amongst, while/whilst, etc) and zero/-s doublets (beside/besides, toward/towards), but I can't think of any -st/-s doublets, which is kind of weird?]
User avatar
Omzinesý
mongolian
mongolian
Posts: 4079
Joined: 27 Aug 2010 08:17
Location: nowhere [naʊhɪɚ]

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

Did the genitive have other uses than modifying a noun in some stage of common Germanic?
Latin and Greek genitives at least did.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
Salmoneus
MVP
MVP
Posts: 3030
Joined: 19 Sep 2011 19:37

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

Well, it also formed adverbials, apparently, which makes sense, since oblique phrases (whether cased or adpositional) often do that.

The genitive could also be governed by certain prepositions - that is, nouns following certain prepositions had to be in the genitive.

There were also probably quite a few verbs that demanded arguments in the genitive. It's hard to know which exactly, because case assignment is something that has often changed in the daughter languages; in general Proto- and Old Germanic probably had a lot more 'quirkily' aligned verbs, as Icelandic does today, compared to mainstream continental modern Germanic [though in English that's partly because a lot of our non-accusative objects are explicitly governed by prepositions now]. However, there were some verbs (sorry, can't remember which) that so clearly take genitive arguments in multiple daughter languages that this has been considered a feature of Proto-Germanic. [likewise dative arguments; instrumental arguments are also found in Old English, but I don't know whether this is certain for PGmc]. These assignments were not just the result of case-governing verbal prepositional prefixes, although those were one reason for them.

In Old English (and possibly PGmc?) many verbs could also vary the case of the subject and/or object for syntactic or semantic reasons. Sometimes this can be regarded as a lexical split ['folgian'+ACC = pursue, 'folgian'+DAT = follow]. The genitive is often used for partitives, ablatives, objects of intellectual verbs, and ditransitive themes of conceptual verbs of various sorts [eg you thank DAT for GEN].
User avatar
All4Ɇn
mayan
mayan
Posts: 1765
Joined: 01 Mar 2014 07:19

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by All4Ɇn »

Given the evolution of Old Portuguese /õ/ into /ãw̃/, why is good bom and not bão?
User avatar
sangi39
moderator
moderator
Posts: 3024
Joined: 12 Aug 2010 01:53
Location: North Yorkshire, UK

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by sangi39 »

All4Ɇn wrote: 23 Feb 2022 01:59 Given the evolution of Old Portuguese /õ/ into /ãw̃/, why is good bom and not bão?
Could just be a retained spelling? Apparently in Brazilian Portuguese bão does appear as a pronunciation spelling
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
User avatar
Lorik
cuneiform
cuneiform
Posts: 98
Joined: 27 Nov 2021 12:30
Location: Brazil

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Lorik »

All4Ɇn wrote: 23 Feb 2022 01:59 Given the evolution of Old Portuguese /õ/ into /ãw̃/, why is good bom and not bão?
That's because bom is (usually) pronounced as [bõ] (don't ask me why). However, in some dialects bom is pronounced [bãw̃]. In fact, sometimes bom is spelled as bão to convey that pronounciation.
Native: :bra: | Fluent: :eng: :fra: | Intermediate: :rus:
User avatar
All4Ɇn
mayan
mayan
Posts: 1765
Joined: 01 Mar 2014 07:19

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by All4Ɇn »

I Lorik wrote: 23 Feb 2022 12:48That's because bom is (usually) pronounced as [bõ] (don't ask me why). However, in some dialects bom is pronounced [bãw̃]. In fact, sometimes bom is spelled as bão to convey that pronounciation.
sangi39 wrote: 23 Feb 2022 12:45Could just be a retained spelling? Apparently in Brazilian Portuguese bão does appear as a pronunciation spelling
I guess it could be a spelling pronunciation of the word. The feminine is boa so that could have something to do with bão not becoming standard.
User avatar
KaiTheHomoSapien
greek
greek
Posts: 641
Joined: 15 Feb 2016 06:10
Location: Northern California

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by KaiTheHomoSapien »

Just a little hypothetical I thought of this morning:

The Romance languages derive their words for "liver" from Latin ficatum, meaning "fig-stuffed". Evidently there was some kind of medieval dish called iecur ficatum "fig-stuffed liver". The actual word for liver, iecur, dropped out of usage entirely and ficatum was reanalyzed to mean liver as food, and eventually the liver as a body part (hence Sp. hígado, It. fegato, Fr. foie, Ro. ficat). iecur is an odd Latin word with an odd structure (an r/n-stem neuter that doubled up both stems in the oblique, like iter), so I'm not surprised it has no modern descendants. But if it did, what would they look like? What would the alternate Spanish, Italian, and French words for liver be?

Thanks for any input [:)]
Image
Post Reply