Nifty Random Features

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Micamo
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by Micamo »

What other languages have locative marking? Are there any where this marking is obligatory? Is Koasati in this class?
My pronouns are <xe> [ziː] / <xym> [zɪm] / <xys> [zɪz]

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eldin raigmore
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by eldin raigmore »

teh_Foxx0rz wrote:
eldin raigmore wrote:But in many of them there is a "conjunctive mood" (I don't think I made up that term, but I can't find who did in the time I have now). All of the verbs of clauses in any clause-chain except the anchor clause, are in this "conjunctive mood".

Japanese is like this with it's "-te" form. I'm not sure it's called a "mood", but it seems to work like how you're describing it here.
Yes, so I've heard.
One of the articles in this book (Switch-reference and universal grammar: proceedings of a Symposium on Switch Reference and Universal Grammar, Winnipeg, May 1981) discusses Japanese's "-te", IIRC.

Does Japanese distinguish between co-ordinating conjunction of clauses and sub-ordinating conjunction of clauses? If so, it's not one of the most "egregious" examples of the kind of clause-chaining I was talking about.

Does Japanese's switch-reference-marked clause come before the referred-to clause, or after?

How is a Japanese switch-reference-marked clause marked to show whether its subject (and/or possibly (one or more of) its object(s)) is the same as or different from the referred-to clause's subject (or possibly (one of) its object(s))? Is there a different marking for proper inclusion than for exact identity or complete disjunction? Is there a marking to show that the marked clause's subject is the referred-to clause's object, or the referred-to clause's indirect object (if that even makes sense for Japanese), instead of being its (the referred-to clause's) subject?

I'll bet I've read all that before, but I certainly have forgotten it all.

How does Japanese's topic-marker enter into all this?
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by eldin raigmore »

teh_Foxx0rz wrote:
eldin raigmore wrote:But in many of them there is a "conjunctive mood" (I don't think I made up that term, but I can't find who did in the time I have now). All of the verbs of clauses in any clause-chain except the anchor clause, are in this "conjunctive mood".
Japanese is like this with it's "-te" form. I'm not sure it's called a "mood", but it seems to work like how you're describing it here.
Algonquianists refer to verbs in Algonquian languages as having an "independent order" (for main clauses and independent clauses, in essence) and a "conjunct order" (for subordinate clauses, in essence).

Maybe Japanese's "-te" could be called and "order"?
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by teh_Foxx0rz »

@Eldin
I don't know very much Japanese yet really, I'm only at Asset level 2 (which is just below GCSE level (and I'm not sure what the American equivalent would be)), but you can form really long sentences with the -te form like:

Kinou no ban watashi wa yuushoku o tabete kara terebi o mite, ni-jikan gurai ongaku o kiite, ichi ji made shukudai o shimashita.
"Last night after dinner I watched TV, listened to music for about two hours, then did homework until one o'clock"

with the tensed verb at the end. My Japanese teacher said that you can essentially chain clause after clause, with the only limit being how cruel you want to be to your listener (since they'd have to wait until the end to find out when you did it, or even if you did it at all :-P )
eldin raigmore wrote:Does Japanese distinguish between co-ordinating conjunction of clauses and sub-ordinating conjunction of clauses? If so, it's not one of the most "egregious" examples of the kind of clause-chaining I was talking about.
I'm not sure to be honest, I don't think I'm at that level yet. ;-)
eldin raigmore wrote:How is a Japanese switch-reference-marked clause marked to show whether its subject (and/or possibly (one or more of) its object(s)) is the same as or different from the referred-to clause's subject (or possibly (one of) its object(s))? Is there a different marking for proper inclusion than for exact identity or complete disjunction? Is there a marking to show that the marked clause's subject is the referred-to clause's object, or the referred-to clause's indirect object (if that even makes sense for Japanese), instead of being its (the referred-to clause's) subject?
After looking at the Wikipedia article on switch-reference, I don't think Japanese does anything like it. (Although there could be some peculiar construction somewhere in the language that somehow does something like that, knowing Japanese :-P)
eldin raigmore wrote: Algonquianists refer to verbs in Algonquian languages as having an "independent order" (for main clauses and independent clauses, in essence) and a "conjunct order" (for subordinate clauses, in essence).

Maybe Japanese's "-te" could be called and "order"?
I don't think Japanese distinguishes independent and subordinate clauses (that is if it has formal subordinate clauses, I don't know) at least in the -te form, as any non-main verb takes the -te form generally, but maybe it could. I've only ever seen it referred to as "the -te form" though.
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by cybrxkhan »

Okay, I just stumbled on the distinguishing between "Advanced and Retracted Tongue Root" on Wikipedia, where there "are contrasting states of the root of the tongue during the pronunciation of vowels".

I kind of don't have a clear idea about how this is exactly supposed to work, but looks nifty.
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by eldin raigmore »

cybrxkhan wrote:Okay, I just stumbled on the distinguishing between "Advanced and Retracted Tongue Root" on Wikipedia, where there "are contrasting states of the root of the tongue during the pronunciation of vowels".

I kind of don't have a clear idea about how this is exactly supposed to work, but looks nifty.
Vowels can be pronounced with an advanced tongue-root.
You widen your throat, front-to-back, by moving the root of your tongue forward (the root of your tongue is behind where it curves down under your uvula, but above your epiglottis).
Sometimes such vowels are called "wide vowels".
In some languages speakers can make and hear the difference.

Some consonants can be pronounced with the tongue-root retracted, that is, moved back, so that it narrows the throat. "Emphatic" consonants, in some languages including some Semitic languages, are pronounced with RTR. For consonants with a PoA behind the velum -- uvular, pharyngeal, epiglottal, laryngeal -- it might be that RTR is the default, according to some people. See the Lillooet language.

Wikipedia's article seems to err (or at least I think it does), in implicitly suggesting that RTR and ATR are the only positions; in fact, the default position, usually, is "relaxed tongue root", neither advanced nor retracted.

You can't retract the tongue root while pronouncing a vowel, and you can't advance it while pronouncing an obstruent.
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by cybrxkhan »

@Eldin: Informative as always. Thank you very much! I tried doing it with my tongue and it kind of hurts. :mrgreen:


Anyhow, another little nifty feature from another Native American language, Kashaya (which... ronin probably already knows about): 20 different types of instrumental prefixes.
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by roninbodhisattva »

cybrxkhan wrote:Anyhow, another little nifty feature from another Native American language, Kashaya (which... ronin probably already knows about): 20 different types of instrumental prefixes.
haha I actually don't know much about Pomoan, but I've got a friend who's obsessed with them.
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by taylorS »

Micamo wrote:
roninbodhisattva wrote:What do you find so surprising / exciting about this?
Mostly because it's ANADEW. I thought the idea of locative marking on the verb was original...
I use locative verbal affixes in my conlang Alpic. In Alpic they are derived from adverbs, some of which are cognate to PIE adpositions since Alpic is a sister to IE.

Inotem
i-no-te-m
go-PST.OPT-ABLATIVE-1SG.ACTIVE
go-want-from-I
"I wanted to leave"
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by Yačay256 »

Has anyone mentioned consonantal ablaut?
¡Mñíĝínxàʋày!
¡[ˈmí.ɲ̟ōj.ˌɣín.ʃà.βä́j]!
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by Ear of the Sphinx »

taylorS wrote:
Mostly because it's ANADEW. I thought the idea of locative marking on the verb was original...
I use locative verbal affixes in my conlang Alpic. In Alpic they are derived from adverbs, some of which are cognate to PIE adpositions since Alpic is a sister to IE.

Inotem
i-no-te-m
go-PST.OPT-ABLATIVE-1SG.ACTIVE
go-want-from-I
"I wanted to leave"
Polish:
chodzę
walk.1sg
I walk

odchodzę
from-walk.1sg
I leave

przychodzę
at-walk.1sg
I come

przechodzę
across-walk.1sg
I pass

nachodzę
on-walk.1sg
I intrude
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by Yačay256 »

Are you perchance talking about directionals?

If you are, I will use Sumerian to give examples: Munĝin=S/he has come to it (VEN) vs. Banĝin=S/he has gone away from it (AND.)

These are known as conjugation prefixes and their use is mandatory on verbs in Sumerian and they are very similar to the directionals of other languages.
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¡[ˈmí.ɲ̟ōj.ˌɣín.ʃà.βä́j]!
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by Micamo »

In Mark C. Baker's book Lexical Categories, he gives the argument that adpositions are actually a functional category, analogous to determiners.

What's really interesting is his subsequent explanation for why English has such a large number of them, and why English prepositions have much more semantic content than other languages: If I understand correctly, his theory on this is that there's actually a small number of underlying functional heads which become conflated with lexical items, very much analogously to his theory of verbs (where lexical items become conflated with a functional predication head) and his theory of nouns (which are conflated with referential indices).
My pronouns are <xe> [ziː] / <xym> [zɪm] / <xys> [zɪz]

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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by eldin raigmore »

Since I've liked some of his books, and some of us (not me, but others active here) are students of his, the answer may be "slim", but:

What are the odds Baker is just wrong, or not wrong but unnecessarily complicating something simple?

Anyway, if he's right, that's a poke in the eye to generativists who think adpositions are lexical but adverbs aren't.
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Re: Nifty Random Features

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eldin raigmore wrote:What are the odds Baker is just wrong, or not wrong but unnecessarily complicating something simple?
I'm not really educated enough on the subject to make a judgement here, but his argument sounds convincing enough. Then again, I haven't read any of his critics either. Perhaps they could pick up on explanatory holes Baker and I missed, though unlike most writers he's quick to cover his bases and put great big flashing signs over the things he knows he doesn't understand. He confronts potential criticisms directly instead of attempting to sweep them under the rug; That wins a good deal of my respect.
Anyway, if he's right, that's a poke in the eye to generativists who think adpositions are lexical but adverbs aren't.
What!?
My pronouns are <xe> [ziː] / <xym> [zɪm] / <xys> [zɪz]

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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by roninbodhisattva »

Micamo wrote:In Mark C. Baker's book Lexical Categories, he gives the argument that adpositions are actually a functional category, analogous to determiners.

What's really interesting is his subsequent explanation for why English has such a large number of them, and why English prepositions have much more semantic content than other languages: If I understand correctly, his theory on this is that there's actually a small number of underlying functional heads which become conflated with lexical items, very much analogously to his theory of verbs (where lexical items become conflated with a functional predication head) and his theory of nouns (which are conflated with referential indices).
It may just be the way you've laid it out here, but I really don't understand this argument.
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by eldin raigmore »

Micamo wrote:
eldin raigmore wrote:What are the odds Baker is just wrong, or not wrong but unnecessarily complicating something simple?
I'm not really educated enough on the subject to make a judgement here, but his argument sounds convincing enough. Then again, I haven't read any of his critics either. Perhaps they could pick up on explanatory holes Baker and I missed, though unlike most writers he's quick to cover his bases and put great big flashing signs over the things he knows he doesn't understand. He confronts potential criticisms directly instead of attempting to sweep them under the rug; That wins a good deal of my respect.
That's probably true of him. I'd have to re-read the one book of his I have to tell, but I didn't notice a problem when I first read it.

What wins my respect is that he doesn't use any abbreviations he hasn't spelled out somewhere, he doesn't use school-specific generativist jargon he doesn't explain somewhere in cross-school language, and in general his work is accessible without having previously been immersed in a generativist graduate-school program.

Micamo wrote:
Anyway, if he's right, that's a poke in the eye to generativists who think adpositions are lexical but adverbs aren't.
What!?
I assume you're as surprised as I was when I read that some generativists list English's lexical categories as "verbs, nouns, adjectives, adpositions" rather than "verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs".
I can see either throwing out the adverbs or folding them into the adjectives (or maybe the nouns -- some folks think adverbs are just another kind of noun), or including the adpositions. I can't see tossing out the adverbs but including the adpositions.

Was that what you meant bye "What!?"?
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Micamo
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by Micamo »

eldin raigmore wrote:I assume you're as surprised as I was when I read that some generativists list English's lexical categories as "verbs, nouns, adjectives, adpositions" rather than "verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs".
I can see either throwing out the adverbs or folding them into the adjectives (or maybe the nouns -- some folks think adverbs are just another kind of noun), or including the adpositions. I can't see tossing out the adverbs but including the adpositions.

Was that what you meant bye "What!?"?
I presumed, until now, they meant that they were classifying adverbs as a subclass of adjectives, like transitive vs. intransitive verbs. I didn't think it was actually possible they were supposing words like "quickly" and "bashfully" are function words.
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Re: Nifty Random Features

Post by thaen »

Micamo wrote:What other languages have locative marking? Are there any where this marking is obligatory? Is Koasati in this class?
Latin uses (or used) locative for cities and such. I use it in a few of my conlangs.
:con: Nillahimma
:con: Øð!
:con: Coneylang

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