TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-01-07, 16:52

OldBoring wrote:To be fair though, it may not be necessarily an intentionally created mnemonics.
if I catch him I'll beat him

I guess the g becomes k because of assonance with 橄榄.

Not sure what you mean by "assonance" here. In English, "assonance" means repeating the same (or similar) vowel sounds, usually in literature or poetry. Do you just mean "similarity"? Or maybe you meant the g becomes k by analogy with 橄榄?
And in many Chinese languages (I've noticed the same in other Asian languages) s-like consonants + affricates [insert phonetic term here] alveolar sibilants can only go with certain types of vowels, not with i/j or y/ɥ;, which require ɕ-like consonants + affricates [again, insert phonetic term] palatal (or "palato-alveolal" if you really want to be that precise, I guess) sibilants.

Yeah, a lot of languages have a distribution that's something like that, maybe not with exactly the same sounds but still alveolar sibilant vs. palatal(ish) sibilant. Polish, for example, has the same thing. It doesn't have [y] or [ɥ], but it does have [ɕ] and its voiced equivalent [ʑ].
So, for most Chinese -[-t͡s(ʰ)je] is not pronounceable. They either say -[-t͡s(ʰ)e] by deleting the j, or -[-t͡ɕ(ʰ)i̯e] by changing the consonant.

They can say -[t͡s(ʰ)e]? Nice.

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-01-07, 20:22

I think I might finally be ready to move on to French. :D

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby OldBoring » 2016-01-07, 20:35

vijayjohn wrote:Not sure what you mean by "assonance" here. In English, "assonance" means repeating the same (or similar) vowel sounds, usually in literature or poetry. Do you just mean "similarity"? Or maybe you meant the g becomes k by analogy with 橄榄?

That's because English uses “assonance” in a wrong way. :lol:
In Italian the primary meaning of assonanza means “similarity in sound”. When poetries repeat similar sounds, that's an assonanza, but it's an extended meaning.
s-like consonants + affricates [insert phonetic term here] alveolar sibilants

I really suck at phonetic terms. I didn't know affricates were also sibilants. I thought sibilants were like s, ʃ, ɕ and the like.
"palato-alveolal"

Gosh, does “palato-alveolar” mean ɕ, and “alveolo-palatal” ʃ? That'll be my eternal mystery, unless I reincarnate into a linguist.
-[-t͡s(ʰ)je]
-[-t͡s(ʰ)e]
-[-t͡ɕ(ʰ)i̯e]

I didn't know you put the hyphen outside the brackets.
They can say -[t͡s(ʰ)e]? Nice.

Sorry, in this case I was talking about Chinese people in general, not specifically [monolingual] Mandarin speakers.
A Mandarin speaker would probably say qie, although I can imagine them say cei. While cei is not a valid syllable in Standard Mandarin, it is in e.g. Beijing dialect [卒瓦] cèi.

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-01-07, 20:49

OldBoring wrote:I really suck at phonetic terms. I didn't know affricates were also sibilants. I thought sibilants were like s, ʃ, ɕ and the like.

Well, afficates that include those sounds are sibilants. ;) So [s z ʃ ʒ ɕ ʑ ʂ ʐ t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ t͡ɕ d͡ʑ t͡ʂ d͡ʐ], I think.
Gosh, does “palato-alveolar” mean ɕ, and “alveolo-palatal” ʃ?

Nope, more like the other way around. [ɕ] is palato-alveolal, a.k.a. alveolo-palatal, and [ʃ] is alveopalatal or palato-alveolar. ;) At least I think so! :lol:
That'll be my eternal mystery, unless I reincarnate into a linguist.

That's okay. Linguists are confused about this, too! :D The linguists I've known didn't even seem to care much about the fact that [ɕ] exists. I wish I knew back then that Malayalam contrasts that with [ʃ] (not that it would have made much of a difference to them anyway :P).
I didn't know you put the hyphen outside the brackets.

Yep, 'cause hyphens aren't part of IPA.
Sorry, in this case I was talking about Chinese people in general, not specifically [monolingual] Mandarin speakers.

I didn't even know there were any varieties of Chinese where that was a possible syllable.
A Mandarin speaker would probably say qie, although I can imagine them say cei. While cei is not a valid syllable in Standard Mandarin, it is in e.g. Beijing dialect [卒瓦] cèi.

Cool, and thanks for sharing! :)

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby OldBoring » 2016-01-08, 5:29

vijayjohn wrote:Well, afficates that include those sounds are sibilants. ;) So [s z ʃ ʒ ɕ ʑ ʂ ʐ t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ t͡ɕ d͡ʑ t͡ʂ d͡ʐ], I think.

Sank you.
[ɕ] is palato-alveolal, a.k.a. alveolo-palatal
[ʃ] is alveopalatal or palato-alveolar.

:doh: :doh: :doh:
That's okay. Linguists are confused about this, too! :D The linguists I've known didn't even seem to care much about the fact that [ɕ] exists. I wish I knew back then that Malayalam contrasts that with [ʃ] (not that it would have made much of a difference to them anyway :P).

Then maybe I'd better reincarnate into a phoneticist. :lol:
There's a dispute among linguists about Wu Chinese: some claim it has ʃ-like sibilants (sorry, but the phonetic terms are too complicated), some claim it has ɕ-like sibilants.
When I heard your recording of both sounds in Malayalam, I think your ʃ was closer to Mandarin ɕ, ironically.

For me it looks like: if it's an European language, use ʃ. If it's an East or South East Asian language, use ɕ.

Yep, 'cause hyphens aren't part of IPA.

I'm pretty sure I've them both inside brackets and (especially) inside slashes, in dictionaries, often after a comma, like e.g. casa /kasa, -za/.

I didn't even know there were any varieties of Chinese where that was a possible syllable.

Why not? :hmm: I haven't found any variety of Chinese that doesn't have [t͡s(ʰ)] yet, and many topolects have /e/ as a vowel.

Well, since you know a little Cantonese, ce1 (Jyutping) is the pronunciation of 车.

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-01-08, 5:42

OldBoring wrote:Then maybe I'd better reincarnate into a phoneticist. :lol:

Nope, sorry! I was specifically thinking of phoneticists when I said even linguists are confused about it. ;) Linguists (including phoneticists) don't agree on much!
For me it looks like: if it's an European language, use ʃ. If it's an East or South East Asian language, use ɕ.

Depends on which linguist/phoneticist you ask, because some of them will say a language has [ʃ] where others say it has [ɕ], too! :D
I'm pretty sure I've them both inside brackets and (especially) inside slashes, in dictionaries, often after a comma, like e.g. casa /kasa, -za/.

Dictionaries don't necessarily use IPA, though, even though they may use something that looks very similar. Neither commas nor hyphens are part of the IPA as far as I know. :)
Why not? :hmm: I haven't found any variety of Chinese that doesn't have [t͡s(ʰ)] yet, and many topolects have /e/ as a vowel.

Because I've just never seen one with that particular syllable before, or at least can't (well, couldn't) think of one off the top of my head that does. :P
Well, since you know a little Cantonese, ce1 (Jyutping) is the pronunciation of 车.

Oh OK. :)

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby OldBoring » 2016-01-08, 5:55

vijayjohn wrote:Nope, sorry! I was specifically thinking of phoneticists when I said even linguists are confused about it. ;) Linguists (including phoneticists) don't agree on much!

And I often don't agree with you! :twisted:
Depends on which linguist/phoneticist you ask, because some of them will say a language has [ʃ] where others say it has , too! :D

Yea, but I was talking more about “mainstream” transcriptions, i.e. the most common ones. For example Mandarin x is always ɕ, so are Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese consonants.
While in Europe, I see ʃ almost everywhere, except maybe Slavic languages, because they have more sibilants than ways of cooking potatoes.
Dictionaries don't necessarily use IPA, though, even though they may use something that looks very similar. Neither commas nor hyphens are part of the IPA as far as I know. :)

Then how do you transcribe “/kasa/, alternatively /kaza/” in a concise way and following IPA ‘correctness’?
/kasa/, -/za/?
And what about the tilde ~ to indicate a free variant? Do you put it inside or outside the brackets?

Wait. How do you pronounce 谢 in Cantonese, then? :hmm:

I thought it was [t͡ɕe] or something, but yeah, who knows (I don't!), maybe it's [tse]. :lol:

As far as I know, even though most linguists consider Cantonese ɕ and s as the same phoneme, their allophones usually follow the same rule I mentioned above, so ɕ in front of i and y, but s elsewhere.
Guangdong romanization distinguishes them à la Hanyu Pinyin.

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-01-08, 6:35

OldBoring wrote:And I often don't agree with you! :twisted:

Well, that's okay, because not too many people agree with me all that often. And sometimes I'm full of shit anyway. :lol:
Yea, but I was talking more about “mainstream” transcriptions, i.e. the most common ones.

But how do you tell which ones are "the most common" anyway? These are definitely the ones Wikipedia uses. They may also be the ones that Chinese linguists commonly use. They're not necessarily the ones common linguistics textbooks outside of China use, though.
Then how do you transcribe “/kasa/, alternatively /kaza/” in a concise way and following IPA ‘correctness’?
/kasa/, -/za/?

Sure! You don't even need the comma. :)
And what about the tilde ~ to indicate a free variant? Do you put it inside or outside the brackets?

I think that actually can go inside the brackets as well. Pfff, this is probably one of those situations where it turns out I'm just full of shit. :silly:
As far as I know, even though most linguists consider Cantonese ɕ and s as the same phoneme, their allophones usually follow the same rule I mentioned above, so ɕ in front of i and y, but s elsewhere.

Those two statements sound completely compatible to me. If they're the same phoneme (or at least in a neutralization distribution. If you don't know what that means, just ignore it, trust me lol), that's exactly when we'd expect a distribution like that. :) Otherwise, it probably wouldn't make sense for one sound to occur only in some environments and the other only in others.

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby OldBoring » 2016-01-08, 8:08

vijayjohn wrote:And sometimes I'm full of shit anyway.

Don't worry, we are all full of shit. That's why we go to the bathroom.
But how do you tell which ones are "the most common" anyway? These are definitely the ones Wikipedia uses.

Yea, my arbitrary feinition of “the most common” is pretty much “Wikipedia uses it”. :lol:
it turns out I'm just full of shit.

See above.
Those two statements sound completely compatible to me. If they're the same phoneme (or at least in a neutralization distribution. If you don't know what that means, just ignore it, trust me lol), that's exactly when we'd expect a distribution like that. :) Otherwise, it probably wouldn't make sense for one sound to occur only in some environments and the other only in others.

Now that I think of, I think I was wrong. :P
In the sense that they are actually free variants, not allophones in Cantonese.
So for example, you can say 谢 as both t͡se and t͡ɕe, even though the first one is more common, but most Cantonese speakers may also vary freely between the two sounds without realizing they are different sounds.

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-01-08, 15:23

OldBoring wrote:Don't worry, we are all full of shit. That's why we go to the bathroom.

But sometimes I'm full of shit even when I don't need to go to the bathroom! :doggy: :lol:
Now that I think of, I think I was wrong. :P
In the sense that they are actually free variants, not allophones in Cantonese.
So for example, you can say 谢 as both t͡se and t͡ɕe, even though the first one is more common, but most Cantonese speakers may also vary freely between the two sounds without realizing they are different sounds.

Oh OK. Interesting stuff! :)

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-01-08, 17:23

Wow, I think I may have ended up getting done with posting in French sooner than I thought I would! Maybe it's time for me to move on to German. :)

Oh, also, I'm starting to feel like I'm doing better with my languages than I thought I was. :shock: Except maybe Spanish or something. :P My confidence in my own language abilities seems to alternately wane and...I guess the opposite would be wax? :lol:

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-01-08, 21:45

Okay, yeah, I've started doing German now. :) I made two more posts in the French forum, too, though. And I'd already made a mistake there, too! :lol:

That mistake, incidentally, had to do with how you say "(forum) post" in French. It made me start thinking: What if there was a list of how you say "forum post" in various languages? (I wouldn't expect most languages to have a distinctive word for that, of course, but still. As far as my understanding goes so far: In French, it's le message or just le post. In German, it's der Beitrag. In Spanish, it's la publicación. In Chinese, it's 帖子 (tiēzi in Mandarin). Not sure about other languages; I'd expect Indian languages to just use "post" like English).
Last edited by vijayjohn on 2016-01-08, 23:10, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby OldBoring » 2016-01-08, 22:55

What? You did French for only two days? :shock:

In Mandarin it's either tiězi or tiēzi. Both are accepted and common.
I can't say which one “sounds” better to me, cause it's a word I only see in the written form.

In Italian it's either post or intervento. Some forums use messaggio but I don't like it, it's too generic a word.

You should open a thread in the Translations forum!

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-01-09, 2:25

OldBoring wrote:What? You did French for only two days? :shock:

Yeah, I guess the French forum is pretty inactive these days! There've only like three posts in the past day on that forum, and the last post was mine almost eight hours ago. :lol:
In Mandarin it's either tiězi or tiēzi. Both are accepted and common.
I can't say which one “sounds” better to me, cause it's a word I only see in the written form.
In Italian it's either post or intervento. Some forums use messaggio but I don't like it, it's too generic a word.

Oh OK, thanks! Yeah, I suck at remembering words for 'forum post'. :P
You should open a thread in the Translations forum!

I should, shouldn't I? :para: But that's a part of the forum I've always been afraid to venture into. I think it's because I'm afraid that I should try to translate like everything there in as many languages as possible, and that sounds so daunting! :lol: The other part of the forum I've barely touched is the games forum.

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby Bubulus » 2016-01-09, 2:43

vijayjohn wrote:In Spanish, it's la publicación.

Never heard that. People only use el mensaje and el post (pl. los posts). El comentario too, I guess, if it's under a blog entry or the like?

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-01-09, 3:06

Oh, I probably got confused because publicar can be used for 'to post', as Antea pointed out earlier in this thread. :)

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby OldBoring » 2016-01-09, 3:19

Ah, these Spanish purists.

The first variety of Spanish I learnt was Peruvian Spanish, especially the jargon used in the online game Gunbound Latino.
They used words like cliquear (to click), chatear (to chat), banear (to ban), rankeo (ranking), etc.

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-01-09, 22:55

Don't Mexicans also use an awful lot more English loanwords than most other Spanish-speakers or something like that? Or am I thinking of Chicanos and/or Mexican(-)Americans?

This is a poem (there are a few different versions of it) with both English and Spanish in it that we talked about briefly in a course I took once (with my advisor), with all the Spanish words in italics (I've edited it slightly) but without using Spanish punctuation rules:

'Tis the night before Christmas, and all through the casa,
Not a creature is stirring. Caramba! Qué pasa?
The stockings are hanging con mucho cuidado
In hopes that Saint Nicholas will feel obligado
To leave a few cosas aquí and allí
For chico y chica (y something por mí!).

Los niños are snuggled all safe in their camas,
Some in camisas y some in pajamas.
Their little cabezas are full of good things;
Todos esperan que (sp?) Santa will bring!
Santa is down at the corner saloon
(Muy borracho since mid-afternoon!).

Mama is sitting beside the ventana
Shining her rolling-pin para mañana
When Santa will come en un manner extraño
Lit up like the star on the mountain, cantando
Y mamá lo manda
to bed with a right
"Merry Christmas a todos y a todos good night!"

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-01-10, 4:07

I guess I might as well mention that I ended up going back to French as well as doing German, so now I'm actually doing both French and German. :P And I love it! :D

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Re: TAC 2016 - vijayjohn

Postby OldBoring » 2016-01-10, 4:37

I don't think Chicanos use a lot of English loanwords. They just say whole sentences in English. :P Or rather, half of the sentence in Spanish, and half in English.


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