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

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

Post by sangi39 »

Omzinesý wrote: 09 Mar 2020 13:41
sangi39 wrote: 09 Mar 2020 13:34
Omzinesý wrote: 09 Mar 2020 12:52
shimobaatar wrote: 09 Mar 2020 11:25
Omzinesý wrote: 09 Mar 2020 10:30What is DP?
In what context?
A guy in Omegle asked for such a thing. 😂

Something like NP movement and and DP movement.
Ohhhh, determiner phrase? It looks like it's used a lot like "NP" or "VP" in that once you start looking at articles and resources about it, you should already be familiar with what the abbreviations mean (the first page of results of Google, for example, most of the articles don't explicitly use "noun phrase" or "determine phrase" at all, and just use NP and DP from the start).
The book explained all other abbreviations in the beginning. Not the one I don't know.
Huh, how ood. Do you have an example of when it's used in the book?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Sequor »

The Egyptian Arabic word for lobster is استاكوزا estako:za (compare Standard Arabic كركند karkand 'red spinel gem; lobster'). What are the chances this comes from Italo-Romance (ch)esta cosa 'this thing'? I think it's possible, and funny.
Last edited by Sequor on 10 Mar 2020 03:57, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by sangi39 »

Ser wrote: 10 Mar 2020 00:30 The Egyptian Arabic word for lobster is استاكوزا estako:za (compare Standard Arabic كركند karkand 'red spinel gem; lobster'). What are the chances this comes from Italo-Romance (ch)esta cosa 'this thing'? It think it's possible, and funny.
It would be pretty awesome, but it seems to be related to the Greek αστακός /astakós/, meaning "lobster", but it also happens to have been used as a personal name and a place name at various times. There's no realy consensus as to where this word came from, though, some suggesting it comes from ὀστέον /osteón/, meaning "bone", ultimately from PIE *h₃ésth₁ with the same meaning, while others think it's from some non-IE language.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Khemehekis »

sangi39 wrote: 10 Mar 2020 02:25 It would be pretty awesome, but it seems to be related to the Greek αστακός /astakós/, meaning "lobster", but it also happens to have been used as a personal name and a place name at various times. There's no realy consensus as to where this word came from, though, some suggesting it comes from ὀστέον /osteón/, meaning "bxne", ultimately from PIE *h₃ésth₁ with the same meaning, while others think it's from some non-IE language.
So that must be the etymon of "astacology"! The study of crayfish.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by LinguistCat »

Would it be likely for a language that has two ways of forming concessive constructions to turn one into a concessive conditional? Example:

A construction that meant "Even though John smokes, he's still in good health." coming to mean "Even if John smokes, he may stay in good health."

It seems to me like it could easily change this way with time. But it would also affect the main phrase (at least going from the proto-language I'm using and its grammar), and I've thought things were likely before that others with more experience seemed to think were unlikely. So I wanted to check if this was more sound.

ETA: A little ways into this paper, I found that concessives do often become concessive conditionals. So please ignore this question.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Sequor »

sangi39 wrote: 10 Mar 2020 02:25It would be pretty awesome, but it seems to be related to the Greek αστακός /astakós/, meaning "lobster", but it also happens to have been used as a personal name and a place name at various times. There's no realy consensus as to where this word came from, though, some suggesting it comes from ὀστέον /osteón/, meaning "bone", ultimately from PIE *h₃ésth₁ with the same meaning, while others think it's from some non-IE language.
In other words, basically no. Bummer.
LinguistCat wrote: 10 Mar 2020 04:54Would it be likely for a language that has two ways of forming concessive constructions to turn one into a concessive conditional?
In Classical Chinese, two juxtaposed clauses without any markers of their relationship can be interpreted as temporally sequential (first A, then B), conditional (if A, then B), concessive (even though A, nevertheless B), or explanatorily consequential (because A, therefore B). There are markers to disambiguate such relationships if it's really needed though.

I find this thing about Classical Chinese pretty interesting, because I think that, in general, these relationships can really expand and morph into each other. Notice how German wenn (the cognate of "when") can mean both 'if' (marking conditions) and 'when' (marking temporal sequence or co-occurrence), even if it means the former more often than the latter. I feel that "even though X" can seep into "even if X" and then "if X", and then that can seep into "when X" and "because X", and then "as soon as X" and "first X [and then Y]".

Maybe you could also say "even though A, nevertheless B" is rather like "A but B", and the others are rather like "A and B"...
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

sangi39 wrote: 09 Mar 2020 13:59
Omzinesý wrote: 09 Mar 2020 13:41
sangi39 wrote: 09 Mar 2020 13:34
Omzinesý wrote: 09 Mar 2020 12:52
shimobaatar wrote: 09 Mar 2020 11:25
Omzinesý wrote: 09 Mar 2020 10:30What is DP?
In what context?
A guy in Omegle asked for such a thing. 😂

Something like NP movement and and DP movement.
Ohhhh, determiner phrase? It looks like it's used a lot like "NP" or "VP" in that once you start looking at articles and resources about it, you should already be familiar with what the abbreviations mean (the first page of results of Google, for example, most of the articles don't explicitly use "noun phrase" or "determine phrase" at all, and just use NP and DP from the start).
The book explained all other abbreviations in the beginning. Not the one I don't know.
Huh, how ood. Do you have an example of when it's used in the book?
I don't remember well, but it was the introduction article in a book on word order and information structure.
It wasn't as interesting as I had thought because it had too much abstract generative stuff and too little on functions, i.e. word order encoding information structure.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by LinguistCat »

Ser wrote: 10 Mar 2020 07:43
LinguistCat wrote: 10 Mar 2020 04:54Would it be likely for a language that has two ways of forming concessive constructions to turn one into a concessive conditional?
In Classical Chinese, two juxtaposed clauses without any markers of their relationship can be interpreted as temporally sequential (first A, then B), conditional (if A, then B), concessive (even though A, nevertheless B), or explanatorily consequential (because A, therefore B). There are markers to disambiguate such relationships if it's really needed though.

I find this thing about Classical Chinese pretty interesting, because I think that, in general, these relationships can really expand and morph into each other. Notice how German wenn (the cognate of "when") can mean both 'if' (marking conditions) and 'when' (marking temporal sequence or co-occurrence), even if it means the former more often than the latter. I feel that "even though X" can seep into "even if X" and then "if X", and then that can seep into "when X" and "because X", and then "as soon as X" and "first X [and then Y]".

Maybe you could also say "even though A, nevertheless B" is rather like "A but B", and the others are rather like "A and B"...
Ooh I can definitely use that later. The conlang I'm making doesn't sound much like the rl lang it's supposed to be related to currently, but getting past some sound changes and a few grammar tweaks caused by those, it's still pretty similar grammatically. So it would be nice to drag it in another direction grammatically as well.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Aevas »

I'm looking for information relating to tone or pitch accent affecting diachronic vowel quality. Does anyone have any examples of this happening or have suggestions for where I might find it?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by sangi39 »

Aszev wrote: 11 Mar 2020 22:03 I'm looking for information relating to tone or pitch accent affecting diachronic vowel quality. Does anyone have any examples of this happening or have suggestions for where I might find it?
The only things I've found so far, in an admittedly quick search, suggest that in Mandarin, the high falling tone causes all vowels except /a/ to be slightly lowered in height, while the low and rising tones caused /i y u/ to be pronounced with the body of the tongue slightly higher, and /a/ slightly lower. Apparently, though, the differences are only slight, albeit consistent.

I think I came across something about Limburgish having differences in vowel quality (in diphthongs?) depending on the pitch of the accented syllable.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

Why is there a double x in anti-vaxxers?
Is there any other English word (excluding proper nouns) that’s spelled with a double x?
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Post by Dormouse559 »

eldin raigmore wrote: 14 Mar 2020 17:49 Why is there a double x in anti-vaxxers?
Maybe to parallel the double C in "vaccine".
eldin raigmore wrote:Is there any other English word (excluding proper nouns) that’s spelled with a double x?
Not that I know of. I haven't been able to find any other examples searching word finder websites (other than ones that look like affective/pornographic respellings [:P]).
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Post by Pabappa »

doxxing is usually spelled with two x's as well. I think it might just be part of a general English spelling trend.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

It's basic common sense innit.

Short vowels are followed by doubled consonants, long vowels by single consonants. Its such a good spelling rule that even people who don't consciously know it have generally internalised it.

Phonologically, 'x' in these words represents a cluster of two phonemes; but it's still only one consonant letter. So the rule is extended to it.

I guess a parallel is the way that new words with a short vowel before /v/ get double 'v', even though old ones don't for historical reasons. So "levy", but "savvy" and "navvy". (I'm not sure when 'new' begins in this case, but 'navvy' suggests it must be 1900 at the latest, if not 1800 (I don't know when people started actually writing the word, though of course they've been using it for centuries. And come to think of it, 'savvy' is probably 18th century).

The rareness of 'xx' may be because such words have to be either sui generis coinings (as borrowing will keep the original spelling), or else derivatives from words ending in 'x' that are a) common enough to have developed new derivatives, but b) not common enough historically to have already produced establised derivatives before the rule became generalised. So "boxer" has only one 'x', because the word is ancient; "salixing" (the act of encasing in Latinate willow products) doesn't have two 'x's because it's a word I just invented, so hasn't got a popularised spelling...

It's also less likely to happen where the word ending 'x' is clearly an abbreviation of a longer word, where people still 'know' there's only one 'x' in it. So probably 'saxing' rather than 'saxxing', because 'saxophone' has only one 'x'. That said, I wouldn't be shocked to see someone write 'saxxing'.

Oh, and I've definitely seen 'sexxing'.

EDIT: one possibility that springs to mind would be derivatives of "xerox". Wiktionary gives xeroxing, but I wouldn't be shocked to see xeroxxing (though it's probably JUST too early for that to have become the norm, and of course it's not that common a word now).

EDIT EDIT: now I'm jealous of the Hungarians. Apparently their word for 'to xerox' is xeroxozik. Now that's a word!
Last edited by Salmoneus on 14 Mar 2020 21:59, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Khemehekis »

"Beta-buxxer" (an incel term for settled-down boring straight men with boring wives) has a double X.

So does "Maxxinista" (an avid TJ Maxx shopper).

I would imagine people avoided doubling the X because X is pronounced /ks/, so writing "Maxx" would really be writing "Maksks", and writing "anti-vaxxer" would really be writing "anti-vakskser".
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Post by Xonen »

Salmoneus wrote: 14 Mar 2020 21:46Short vowels are followed by doubled consonants, long vowels by single consonants. Its such a good spelling rule that even people who don't consciously know it have generally internalised it.

[...]

"salixing" (the act of encasing in Latinate willow products) doesn't have two 'x's because it's a word I just invented, so hasn't got a popularised spelling...

[...]

EDIT: one possibility that springs to mind would be derivatives of "xerox". Wiktionary gives xeroxing, but I wouldn't be shocked to see xeroxxing
Possibly worth noting is that American English only has this doubling rule for monosyllabic words, so a significant percentage of the internet would probably write "salixing" and "xeroxing" anyway. Although then again, I suspect a part of the reason for usage of <xx> is the same as for other "kewl" spellings on the internet and/or in slang words, so who knows, maybe its usage could spread beyond the usual contexts of consonant doubling.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Khemehekis »

Xonen wrote: 14 Mar 2020 22:15 Possibly worth noting is that American English only has this doubling rule for monosyllabic words,
. . . or for VAC words, as we learned to call them in spelling class (1 vowel-accented syllable-1 consonant). Rebelled, rebelling, patrolled, patrolling, excelled, excelling, admitted, admitting, rebutted, rebutting, preferred, preferring, occurred, occurring, equipped, equipping, debugged, debugging.
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Post by Xonen »

Khemehekis wrote: 14 Mar 2020 22:05 "Beta-buxxer" (an incel term for settled-down boring straight men with boring wives) has a double X.

So does "Maxxinista" (an avid TJ Maxx shopper).

I would imagine people avoided doubling the X because X is pronounced /ks/, so writing "Maxx" would really be writing "Maksks", and writing "anti-vaxxer" would really be writing "anti-vakskser".
Well, kind of. In general, though, doubled consonant letters in English are exactly the same as single ones, so <xx> = <x> = /ks/. Of course, being a consonant cluster, <x> tends not to follow long vowels, nor is it ever really doubled in Latin or French, so back when English spelling rules were originally being established, there was simply no reason to ever write it double. But now that nobody speaks Latin or French anymore, phonology has become largely irrelevant to spelling, and typing an extra letter here or there requires pressing an additional key rather than carving an additional block, evidently the tendency to double consonants after short vowels is starting to spill over to <x> as well.

Khemehekis wrote: 14 Mar 2020 22:19
Xonen wrote: 14 Mar 2020 22:15 Possibly worth noting is that American English only has this doubling rule for monosyllabic words,
. . . or for VAC words, as we learned to call them in spelling class (1 vowel-accented syllable-1 consonant). Rebelled, rebelling, patrolled, patrolling, excelled, excelling, admitted, admitting, rebutted, rebutting, preferred, preferring, occurred, occurring, equipped, equipping, debugged, debugging.
Um, right. I'm pretty sure I originally intended to write "after stressed vowels"; not sure how I ended up with that. [¬.¬]
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

@Khemehekis:
“Maxxinista” is proper-noun-derived, so I wouldn’t want to count it.
The same is true of “Xeroxxing”.

“Doxxing” is a good catch! Thanks, Pabappa! Why is there a double x in doxxing?

“Beta-buxxer” is new to me! What’s its etymology, if you know?
.....
My own guessing was leaning towards “you need two consonantal letters between the vowels to show the first vowel is ‘short’ instead of ‘long’”. Like Salmoneus, Xonen, and Khemehekis.
But I’m also intrigued by the “parallelism with the double c in vaccine” idea! (Like the Dormouse said!)
.....
I’m glad for the responses!

....
Edit: Khemehekis:
The accented vowel in “patrolled” and “patrolling” is long, not short!
Why aren’t they spelled “patroled” and “patroling”?
Sim for “controled” and “controling”?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Khemehekis »

Xonen wrote: 14 Mar 2020 22:46 Well, kind of. In general, though, doubled consonant letters in English are exactly the same as single ones, so <xx> = <x> = /ks/.
Doubling a letter can do weird things. Normally C is pronounced /s/ before E, I, or Y, but when you double the C in "tic" or "soc", you get "ticcing" or "soccer", which are pronounced /k/.
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